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1. Is there a more appropriate newsgroup to post questions regarding
regular expressions? I know many languages now support them, but Perl
is generally considered the de facto standard. (Yes?)

2. Are there plans to add syntax to support matched-nesting, for
things such as balanced parenthesis, angle-brackets, and quote marks?
It's my understanding that there currently is not support for this,
which is why you can't parse xhtml-like text with simply a regular
expression. I.e., you need to go to the next level and write a parser
to maintain the state of the nesting.

Thanks,
--dang

On Mon, 2 Feb 2004, Dang Griffith wrote:

>1. Is there a more appropriate newsgroup to post questions regarding
>regular expressions? I know many languages now support them, but Perl
>is generally considered the de facto standard. (Yes?)

This is the place to ask questions about Perl's regexes.

>2. Are there plans to add syntax to support matched-nesting, for
>things such as balanced parenthesis, angle-brackets, and quote marks?
>It's my understanding that there currently is not support for this,
>which is why you can't parse xhtml-like text with simply a regular
>expression. I.e., you need to go to the next level and write a parser
>to maintain the state of the nesting.

You can match nested things with Perl's regexes, because Perl's regexes
aren't... well... regular. You can execute arbitary code. You can
dynamically generate the regex as it's being matched.

--
Jeff Pinyan RPI Acacia Brother #734 2003 Rush Chairman
"And I vos head of Gestapo for ten | Michael Palin (as Heinrich Bimmler)
years. Ah! Five years! Nein! No! | in: The North Minehead Bye-Election
Oh. Was NOT head of Gestapo AT ALL!" | (Monty Python's Flying Circus)

In article < m>,
Dang Griffith <> wrote:
:1. Is there a more appropriate newsgroup to post questions regarding
:regular expressions? I know many languages now support them, but Perl
:is generally considered the de facto standard. (Yes?)

What perl supports are not really regular expressions; it supports
a superset of regular expressions that can match things that
regular expressions cannot. Thus, if you are trying to study
true regular expressions, you might be better off looking elsewhere.


:2. Are there plans to add syntax to support matched-nesting, for
:things such as balanced parenthesis, angle-brackets, and quote marks?

It isn't just a matter of syntax: it fundamentally affects the
search strategy. True regular expressions *cannot* do balancing
no matter what syntax you use.

--
Positrons can be described as electrons traveling backwards in time.
Certainly many Usenet arguments about the past become clearer when they
are re-interpreted as uncertainty about the future.
-- Walter Roberson

On Mon, 2 Feb 2004 12:56:41 -0500, Jeff 'japhy' Pinyan
<> wrote:

>On Mon, 2 Feb 2004, Dang Griffith wrote:
>
>>1. Is there a more appropriate newsgroup to post questions regarding
>>regular expressions? I know many languages now support them, but Perl
>>is generally considered the de facto standard. (Yes?)
>
>This is the place to ask questions about Perl's regexes.
>
>>2. Are there plans to add syntax to support matched-nesting, for
>>things such as balanced parenthesis, angle-brackets, and quote marks?
>>It's my understanding that there currently is not support for this,
>>which is why you can't parse xhtml-like text with simply a regular
>>expression. I.e., you need to go to the next level and write a parser
>>to maintain the state of the nesting.
>
>You can match nested things with Perl's regexes, because Perl's regexes
>aren't... well... regular. You can execute arbitary code. You can
>dynamically generate the regex as it's being matched.
Thanks to Jeff and Walter. You both confirmed what I thought to be
the case. I.e., regular expressions cannot support nested matching,
but that additional programming can be created to support it.
--dang rpi '87