From: Josselin <josselin@...>
Date: 2006-10-29T15:30:13+09:00
Subject: Re: regex blindness

On 2006-10-28 10:11:49 +0200, Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> said:

> Josselin wrote:
>> I was blind yesterday .. could not find what's wrong in this regex (and 
>> posted that to mac os forum)
>> 
>> /^(?k: ( ?k:0[1-9]|[1-8][0-9]|9[0-8] )  (?k: [0-9]{3} )  )$/
>> 
>> trying to check zipcodes (french cities :  like 78231)
>> 
>> got an undefined (?...) sequence: 
>> /^(?k:(?k:0[1-9]|[1-8][0-9]|9[0-8])(?k:[0-9]{3}))$/
> 
> irb(main):001:0> /(?:x)/
> => /(?:x)/
> irb(main):002:0> /(?k:x)/
> SyntaxError: compile error
> (irb):2: undefined (?...) sequence: /(?k:x)/
>          from (irb):2
>          from :0
> irb(main):003:0> /(?i:x)/
> => /(?i:x)/
> 
> Ruby does not allow the "k" flag there.  And I believe Ruby does not 
> have that RX flag at all.
> 
>> I am also checking email addresses with :
>> /^([a-zA-Z0-9_\.\-])+\@(([a-zA-Z0-9\.\-])+\.)+([a-zA-Z0-9]{2,4})+$/
>> 
>> is there a better regexp for that ...
> 
> I guess you'll find out plenty out there.  The answer to "better" 
> heavily depends on what your goals are (simpler RX, faster matching), 
> what RX engine you are using and what data you are processing.  
> Example: in some cases /[^@\s]+@[^@\s]+/ might be perfectly ok to match 
> an email address - in other cases it won't.
> 
> Kind regards
> 
> 	robert

thanks for your advice, removing the k flag was the k-point..
joss