regular expressions

[Mark Wieder]

Marielle-

Sunday, July 3, 2005, 4:57:28 AM, you wrote:

ML> Of course, the learning curve is very very slow... of course it is very easy to
ML> make errors and quite difficult to keep track of what you are effectively
ML> doing.  My approach is to test my regEx in editors like BBedit (mac) or notetab
ML> (pc) first, so that I can tune them in an environment where I can rapidly check
ML> that the effects are as desired (and yes, this may take a few trial and
ML> errors).

I'm also quite fond of The Regex Coach (pc)

http://weitz.de/index.html

ML> Believe me, once you come to master regEx (which requires extensive use, in
ML> different contexts) them, you come to see them as a real blessing rather than a
ML> curse. After a rocky start, you just fall deeply in love with them.

...although I dare say that anyone who has trouble with Hungarian
notation will run screaming from regex syntax. Very powerful, but
about as far from xTalk's natural language approach as you can get...

-- 
-Mark Wieder
 mwieder at ahsoftware.net