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Regex flavors (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I really like this approach for doing non trivial regex https://github.com/VerbalExpressions

const tester = VerEx()
    .startOfLine()
    .then('http')
    .maybe('s')
    .then('://')
    .maybe('www.')
    .anythingBut(' ')
    .endOfLine();

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I don't. It may look less like line noise, but it doesn't unravel the underlying complexity of what it does. It's just wordier without being helpful.

https://www.wumpus-cave.net/post/2022/06/2022-06-06-how-to-write-regexes-that-are-almost-readable/index.html

Edit: also, these alternative syntaxes tend to make some easy cases easy, but they have no idea what to do with more complicated cases. Try making nested capture groups with these, for instance. It gets messy fast.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

it doesn't unravel the underlying complexity of what it does... these alternative syntaxes tend to make some easy cases easy, but they have no idea what to do with more complicated cases

This can be said of any higher-level language, or API. There is always a cost to abstraction. Binary -> Assembly -> C -> Python. As you go up that chain, many things get easier, but some things become impossible. You always have the option to drop down, though, and these regex tools are no different. Software development, sysops, devops, etc are full of compromises like this.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Exactly, at the end of the day it's about using the right tool for the job. Code that's clear and declarative is easier to maintain, so it makes sense to default to it, but nothing stops you from using low level constructs if you really need to.