Selecting text using REGEX

[Ken Ray]

> > --
> > -- regex method
> > -- 
> > function trim pText
> >   get replaceText(pText, "^\s+", empty)
> >   return replaceText(it, "\s+$", empty)
> > end trim
>
> For an easy "trim" function that is just as fast as regex, try this:
> 
>    return word 1 to -1 of pText


Interesting... my regEx version of Trim was this:

function Trim what
  local tText
  get matchText(what,"(?s)\s*(\S.*\S)\s*",tText)
  return tText
end Trim

Jacque's works well so long as there are no non-breaking spaces involved
in the text you're looking at (which is 99.9% of the time, I'd guess).
The advantage of regex is that .01% where you want to make sure you get
every kind of whitespace character included in the trim... 

So I'm apt to use Jacque's approach for most of my needs, and only use
the regex Trim when I suspect there may be non-breaking spaces involved.

Personally, I think that functions like Trim are so useful, that they
*should* be in Transcript, even if we can do it ourselves.

Ken Ray
Sons of Thunder Software
Email: kray at sonsothunder.com
Web Site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/