From: Nikolai Weibull <ruby-talk@...>
Date: 2003-10-10T03:00:37+09:00
Subject: Re: Extension Language for a Text Editor

* Robert Klemme <bob.news@gmx.net> [Oct, 09 2003 18:42]:
> 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!
Hehe.  Yeah, that is true.  So we'd need two separate constructs.
>
> 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.
>
No, it isn't actually.  Thank you for pointing this out.  This could
actually be the answer to my question.  I'll have to think about this.
I had totally forgot that we had very restrictive single-quoting
contexts (and even the %q{}).  Thanks,
	nikolai

P.S.
I realize now that that last part may seem a bit sarcastic, but it
isn't, I promise.
D.S.

--
::: name: Nikolai Weibull    :: aliases: pcp / lone-star / aka :::
::: born: Chicago, IL USA    :: loc atm: Gothenburg, Sweden    :::
::: page: www.pcppopper.org  :: fun atm: gf,lps,ruby,lisp,war3 :::
main(){printf(&linux["\021%six\012\0"],(linux)["have"]+"fun"-97);}