From: Robert Klemme <bob.news@...>
Date: 2003-10-09T18:12:16+09:00
Subject: Re: Extension Language for a Text Editor


"Nikolai Weibull" <ruby-talk@pcppopper.org> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:20031008200623.GC2178@puritan.bredbandsbolaget.se...

Since others have commented on various aspects of your posting I'll only
throw my 2c at this:

> Also, is there any way of redefining the // operator for constructing
> regular expression objects?  I'm planning on implementing a new regex
> syntax for the editor (to make searches/substitutions easier to
> describe).

Why do you want to change it?  I find it quite flexible and expressive
(especially when using flag "x").  And especially if you want to attract
rubyists to use TREC (The Ruby Editor to Come), then you should ensure
that their knowledge of ruby regexps is not obsoleted, since rx's will
likely play an important role in user defined extensions!

You can always define methods in Kernel like this:

irb(main):002:0* module Kernel
irb(main):003:1>   def rx(str)
irb(main):004:2>     puts "building rx from '#{str}'"
irb(main):005:2>   end
irb(main):006:1> end
=> nil
irb(main):007:0>
irb(main):008:0* rx %q{(foo)+ \s+ (\w+)}
building rx from '(foo)+ \s+ (\w+)'
=> nil
irb(main):009:0> rx '(foo)+ \s+ (\w+)'
building rx from '(foo)+ \s+ (\w+)'
=> nil
irb(main):010:0>

Which isn't too bad IMHO.

Regards

    robert