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  3. I love regular expressions

I love regular expressions

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designcomgraphicsiot
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  • M Mike Hankey

    COBOL?

    As the aircraft designer said, "Simplicate and add lightness". PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.3.0 JaxCoder.com Latest Article: SimpleWizardUpdate

    J Offline
    J Offline
    jmaida
    wrote on last edited by
    #10

    :) close cobol brings back a lot programming memories

    "A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger

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    • H honey the codewitch

      At least the non-backtracking subset. DFA regular expressions. - they are a compact way to describe a simple syntax - they are plain text and brief, easily communicatable and transferable - they are cross platform (at least DFA), running in most any engine - they are incredibly efficient (again, DFA) - they are versatile, able to do validation, tokenization, and matching as well That's probably why they will always be with us. They are maybe the perfect canonical execution of a Chomsky type 3 language. Sure, they can be really terse, but this is as much a strength as it is a weakness, because it facilitates some of the above. I know some people hate them, and I can understand that. But show me a better way.

      Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix

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      S Offline
      StarNamer work
      wrote on last edited by
      #11

      RegExes are like any other tool/language. Great if you've learned how to use it, otherwise you're likely to get annoyed. Many people here probably touch type, but the first time you used a keyboard you possibly thought "why can't they just put the letters in alphabetical order so they're easy to find?" :)

      M 1 Reply Last reply
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      • M Mike Hankey

        COBOL?

        As the aircraft designer said, "Simplicate and add lightness". PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.3.0 JaxCoder.com Latest Article: SimpleWizardUpdate

        J Offline
        J Offline
        jmaida
        wrote on last edited by
        #12

        need regex to natural language and vice versa

        "A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger

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        • S StarNamer work

          RegExes are like any other tool/language. Great if you've learned how to use it, otherwise you're likely to get annoyed. Many people here probably touch type, but the first time you used a keyboard you possibly thought "why can't they just put the letters in alphabetical order so they're easy to find?" :)

          M Offline
          M Offline
          Mircea Neacsu
          wrote on last edited by
          #13

          StarNamer@work wrote:

          "why can't they just put the letters in alphabetical order so they're easy to find?"

          A better question is "why are we so enslaved to tradition that we keep using a layout optimized for the Remington No 2 mechanical typewriter over 100 years ago?" And, please, don't get me started on the sexagesimal system used for time and degrees! :D

          Mircea

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          • H honey the codewitch

            At least the non-backtracking subset. DFA regular expressions. - they are a compact way to describe a simple syntax - they are plain text and brief, easily communicatable and transferable - they are cross platform (at least DFA), running in most any engine - they are incredibly efficient (again, DFA) - they are versatile, able to do validation, tokenization, and matching as well That's probably why they will always be with us. They are maybe the perfect canonical execution of a Chomsky type 3 language. Sure, they can be really terse, but this is as much a strength as it is a weakness, because it facilitates some of the above. I know some people hate them, and I can understand that. But show me a better way.

            Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix

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            K Offline
            Kenneth Haugland
            wrote on last edited by
            #14

            Stay away from the vodka!!! Clinton Yeltsin disaster - YouTube[^] :laugh: I do like regular expressions too. But they often turn out to be very complicated to read and error-check.

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            • J jmaida

              how about natural language to regex translator? such a thing? i am checking.

              "A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger

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              GuyThiebaut
              wrote on last edited by
              #15

              I used ChatGPT precisely for that and it returned a decent regex with an explanation. I needed to word my question in a manner that was generic but the result was actually helpful.

              “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”

              ― Christopher Hitchens

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              • H honey the codewitch

                I don't understand why it's difficult - DFA at least. DFA is () [] * + . | That's not a whole lot to master.

                Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix

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                Nelek
                wrote on last edited by
                #16

                Only because there are few operators it doesn't mean it is easy. Binary is only 0 and 1, and look at what can be done with it. :rolleyes: :-D

                M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.

                1 Reply Last reply
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                • H honey the codewitch

                  I don't understand why it's difficult - DFA at least. DFA is () [] * + . | That's not a whole lot to master.

                  Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix

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                  P Offline
                  pivertt
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #17

                  Thx, learned something new today!

                  the funniest thing about this particular signature is that by the time you realise it doesn't say anything it's to late to stop reading it

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                  • J jmaida

                    :) close cobol brings back a lot programming memories

                    "A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger

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                    D Offline
                    Daniel Pfeffer
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #18

                    jmaida wrote:

                    COBOL brings back a lot of programming memories

                    ... and a good therapist helped me deal with them. :)

                    Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.

                    1 Reply Last reply
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                    • H honey the codewitch

                      At least the non-backtracking subset. DFA regular expressions. - they are a compact way to describe a simple syntax - they are plain text and brief, easily communicatable and transferable - they are cross platform (at least DFA), running in most any engine - they are incredibly efficient (again, DFA) - they are versatile, able to do validation, tokenization, and matching as well That's probably why they will always be with us. They are maybe the perfect canonical execution of a Chomsky type 3 language. Sure, they can be really terse, but this is as much a strength as it is a weakness, because it facilitates some of the above. I know some people hate them, and I can understand that. But show me a better way.

                      Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix

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                      Wizard of Sleeves
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #19

                      Becoming fluent in regex is they first step to becoming a wizard. But a word of warning, never say them out loud, as there is a very good chance you will summon an evil demon (not daemon).

                      Nothing succeeds like a budgie without teeth. To err is human, to arr is pirate.

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                      • R Ron Anders

                        They should be called irregular expressions. :-D

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                        giulicard
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #20

                        Joking aside, more trivially I believe the term "regular" refers to the third level of Chomsky's hierarchy, which, precisely, is defined as Type3-Regular. DFA (Deterministic Finite Automaton) are FSA (Finite State Automaton).

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                        • P pivertt

                          Thx, learned something new today!

                          the funniest thing about this particular signature is that by the time you realise it doesn't say anything it's to late to stop reading it

                          P Offline
                          P Offline
                          Paul Sanders the other one
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #21

                          Love your sig 🤣🤣🤣

                          Paul Sanders. If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal. Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.

                          T 1 Reply Last reply
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                          • M Mircea Neacsu

                            StarNamer@work wrote:

                            "why can't they just put the letters in alphabetical order so they're easy to find?"

                            A better question is "why are we so enslaved to tradition that we keep using a layout optimized for the Remington No 2 mechanical typewriter over 100 years ago?" And, please, don't get me started on the sexagesimal system used for time and degrees! :D

                            Mircea

                            P Offline
                            P Offline
                            Paul Sanders the other one
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #22

                            Take my QWERTY keyboard away? Over my dead body!

                            Paul Sanders. If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal. Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.

                            1 Reply Last reply
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                            • W Wizard of Sleeves

                              Becoming fluent in regex is they first step to becoming a wizard. But a word of warning, never say them out loud, as there is a very good chance you will summon an evil demon (not daemon).

                              Nothing succeeds like a budgie without teeth. To err is human, to arr is pirate.

                              P Offline
                              P Offline
                              Paul Sanders the other one
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #23

                              So you are fluent, then.

                              Paul Sanders. If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal. Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.

                              1 Reply Last reply
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                              • K Kenneth Haugland

                                Stay away from the vodka!!! Clinton Yeltsin disaster - YouTube[^] :laugh: I do like regular expressions too. But they often turn out to be very complicated to read and error-check.

                                P Offline
                                P Offline
                                Paul Sanders the other one
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #24

                                Too funny. Yeltsin was a good sport there.

                                Paul Sanders. If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal. Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.

                                1 Reply Last reply
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                                • H honey the codewitch

                                  At least the non-backtracking subset. DFA regular expressions. - they are a compact way to describe a simple syntax - they are plain text and brief, easily communicatable and transferable - they are cross platform (at least DFA), running in most any engine - they are incredibly efficient (again, DFA) - they are versatile, able to do validation, tokenization, and matching as well That's probably why they will always be with us. They are maybe the perfect canonical execution of a Chomsky type 3 language. Sure, they can be really terse, but this is as much a strength as it is a weakness, because it facilitates some of the above. I know some people hate them, and I can understand that. But show me a better way.

                                  Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix

                                  S Offline
                                  S Offline
                                  seismofish
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #25

                                  I'm absolutely with you on that. Also, with PCREs, the /x switch allows you to indent and comment to your heart's content, so you can write perfectly legible code, and there are on-line engines where you can drop your expression and your input and watch step by step while it does its magic. I'm not sure that I do a day's work without writing a regex and I know of no tool with anywhere near the power for parsing text. ~~~~~~~~ <°}}}>«<

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                                  • H honey the codewitch

                                    At least the non-backtracking subset. DFA regular expressions. - they are a compact way to describe a simple syntax - they are plain text and brief, easily communicatable and transferable - they are cross platform (at least DFA), running in most any engine - they are incredibly efficient (again, DFA) - they are versatile, able to do validation, tokenization, and matching as well That's probably why they will always be with us. They are maybe the perfect canonical execution of a Chomsky type 3 language. Sure, they can be really terse, but this is as much a strength as it is a weakness, because it facilitates some of the above. I know some people hate them, and I can understand that. But show me a better way.

                                    Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix

                                    M Offline
                                    M Offline
                                    Maximilien
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #26

                                    The problem with regular expressions, is that most of us use them once every couple of years and we have to relearn everything from scratch every time. For someone who's doing RE everyday, it's simple; I used to have a boss that was like that; we all went to her to write/debug our RE. (and we never document the RE in the code :rolleyes: )

                                    CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair

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                                    • H honey the codewitch

                                      At least the non-backtracking subset. DFA regular expressions. - they are a compact way to describe a simple syntax - they are plain text and brief, easily communicatable and transferable - they are cross platform (at least DFA), running in most any engine - they are incredibly efficient (again, DFA) - they are versatile, able to do validation, tokenization, and matching as well That's probably why they will always be with us. They are maybe the perfect canonical execution of a Chomsky type 3 language. Sure, they can be really terse, but this is as much a strength as it is a weakness, because it facilitates some of the above. I know some people hate them, and I can understand that. But show me a better way.

                                      Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix

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                                      C Offline
                                      Cpichols
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #27

                                      Since there are good regex interpreters online, I'm good with using them.

                                      1 Reply Last reply
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                                      • G giulicard

                                        Joking aside, more trivially I believe the term "regular" refers to the third level of Chomsky's hierarchy, which, precisely, is defined as Type3-Regular. DFA (Deterministic Finite Automaton) are FSA (Finite State Automaton).

                                        R Offline
                                        R Offline
                                        Ron Anders
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #28

                                        What the absolute ever. :-D

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                                        • P Paul Sanders the other one

                                          Love your sig 🤣🤣🤣

                                          Paul Sanders. If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal. Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.

                                          T Offline
                                          T Offline
                                          thewazz
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #29

                                          Except there's a spelling mistake.

                                          P 1 Reply Last reply
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