From: Eric Mahurin <eric_mahurin@...>
Date: 2005-08-21T04:28:12+09:00
Subject: Re: object pattern matching

--- "Ara.T.Howard" <Ara.T.Howard@noaa.gov> wrote:

> On Sun, 21 Aug 2005, Phil Tomson wrote:
> 
> > In article <43076BDE.2070103@neurogami.com>,
> > James Britt  <james_b@neurogami.com> wrote:
> >> Ara.T.Howard wrote:
> >>> On Sun, 21 Aug 2005, James Britt wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> ...
> >>>>
> >>>> Isn't there a Ruby project that allows one to run
> regexen over object
> >>>> hierarchies?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> dunno...  i seem to recall something too but searching
> the raa didn't
> >>> bring up
> >>> any hits?
> >>>
> >>
> >> I was selling some folks on Ruby recently, and mentioned
> this project,
> >> and I swore I had saved off the initial announcement
> because it struck
> >> me as one of those things that did solve any immediate
> problems but
> >> seemed so slick that I knew it would come in handy.
> >>
> >>
> >> Now I can't find it. :(
> >>
> >>
> >
> > I think you're looking for Reg:
> >
> > http://rubyforge.org/projects/reg/
> >
> > Reg is a library for pattern matching in ruby data
> structures. Reg
> > provides Regexp-like match and match-and-replace for all
> data structures
> > (particularly Arrays, Objects, and Hashes), not just
> Strings.

From my communications with Caleb, I believe he'll be changing
the interface to look more like Regexp.  This will help in
places where you have ducked-type places that deal with
Regexp-like objects.  An example is some of the scan_pattern*
methods I'll be adding to Cursor (not released yet).  I think
he might add the ability to operate on a Cursor directly also,
but I'm not sure about that.  A Cursor by the way is something
generic that can look kind of like a Array, String, IO, C++
iterator, Java stream, etc. all rolled into one API.  I have
many derived classes that operate on a variety of sequential
data structures.

In addition I'm putting together Grammar which will also be
able to operate on any sequential data structure - as long as
you can give it a subset of the Cursor API.  You'll be able to
write a lexer (operates on characters) and a parser (operates
on tokens) in a uniform way.  Similar to ANTLR, but more
unification.


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