[regex-coach] feature request: Named Groups

[Edi Weitz]

Hi!

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 19:27:30 +0200, Randy Gerritse <randy at randy.nu> wrote:

> First of all I've gotta say, having tested all the available regex
> tools, your regex coach is farout the best.

Thanks... :)

> However, one thing has been bugging me A LOT. You don't seem to
> support named groups! Since this makes the output in the language I
> use, PHP, a lot more userfriendly (and less subject to change if you
> alter the expression) I use this language feature a lot:
>
> class="cell2">.*?(?P<downloads>(\d{1,3},{0,1}){0,5})\s*&
> .*?class="cell5">(?P<requirements>.*?)<\/td>
> .*?<td>Publisher:<\/td>
> \s*<td>(?P<publisher>.*?)<\/td>
> .*?<td>Limitations:<\/td>
> \s*<td>(?P<limitations>.*?)<\/td>
> .*?<td>Date.added:<\/td>
> \s*<td>(?P<published>.*?)<\/td>
> .*?<div.id="desc-body">\s*?(?P<longdesc>.*?)\s*?<\/div>
>
> like in the above example (which by the way your tool processes
> correctly except for the named groups, where most other tested tools
> failed!)
>
> in the documentation I found it says that this  format:
>
> (?P<longdesc>group)
>
> ...has been adapted from python and made part of the standard... is
> there a reason you have not put it in the tool? and is it possible
> to start supporting it? that would be a BIG help!!! right now I need
> to strip out all names before testing and that sux0rs... it would
> make your tool the best out there, by a mile..!

The reason for not supporting named groups is that they're not in
Perl.  CL-PPCRE, my regex library on which Regex Coach is based, tries
to be Perl-compatible.

Cheers,
Edi.