From: vikkous <google@...>
Date: 2005-04-24T17:04:32+09:00
Subject: Re: Announcing Reg 0.4.0

> Can it also match on IO ? I'm particularly thinking of a stream
> implementation that supports illimited pushback of characters...

I would very much like to do this, but right now, no. I'm not sure
exactly what would be involved in having the array matcher match files
as well; it seems like you might have to rip out the guts of the
backtracking engine to support it... but maybe not. Anyway, stay tuned
for a future release.

Just having the ability to compare regexps directly against files would
be really helpful in the construction of lexers of all sorts. Java has
this; why doesn't ruby?

> Because if it does, then you've got a lexer system that is also good
as
> something else than just a damn lexer.

Lexers, parsers, and pattern matching languages get too short a shrift
in my opinion. There's really a lot more they could be used for, if
only people would see... of course, it doesn't help that almost all
existing tools of this kind are string-oriented, and hard to use for
other data.

> And by making regexps unified with the rest of the language, it
brings
> Ruby closer to the Icon language, isn't it?

I wouldn't know... please let know about regexp integration in icon;
maybe there's some features I can steal.