From: ahoward <ahoward@...>
Date: 2003-02-13T03:44:49+09:00
Subject: Re: String frustration

On Wed, 12 Feb 2003, Tim Kynerd wrote:

> No offense, but if I wanted THAT, I'd be using Perl.
>
> Thanks anyway.

rexgexs are always ugly - but powerfull.  how can they not be, they are
complete computer programs in one line!

perl can't do this <insert why perl can from appropriate perl guru/>

  a = "a 1\tb 0\nb 1\nb 2\nb 3\tc 0\nd 0\te 0\ne 1\ne 2\ne 3\tf 0\n"

  re =
    %r/
      # field one is the minimal field which ends in a tab
      # it cannot contain newlines

      ([^\n]*?) \t

      # field two is the subsequent minimal field which ends in a tab
      # it can contain newlines

      (.*?) \t

      # field three is the subsequent minimal field which ends in a newline
      # it cannot contain newlines

      ([^\n]*?) \n
    /omx

  fields = a.scan re		# the part perl can't do
  p fields


[["a 1", "b 0\nb 1\nb 2\nb 3", "c 0"], ["d 0", "e 0\ne 1\ne 2\ne 3", "f 0"]]

scan is cooool because it does the whole thing at once.

-a



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