REGEX and Livecode

[David C.]

> ...<snip>The real point of Linux however in terms of features is the shell, and the
> thing about this is that regex is like the air in the shell.  Its all around
> and being used all the time, and is accessible from anywhere.  Any Linux
> editor will support them.  Geany is what I use, but Kate is another.  This
> is why I suggested awk to Richmond.  Awk and Sed are old fashioned text
> manipulation utilties which are built into all Linux distributions - and
> txt2regex and regexxer are going to be in almost all the major repositories.
> If you need to hack around with text, the easiest and quickest way is to use
> the tools that have evolved to do it.  They've evolved over 30+years in the
> hands of very bright and impatient people who just wanted to get certain
> jobs done as simply and quickly as possible, so they are really
> sophisticated and powerful.</snip>

Nice, detailed reply, Peter!
I have a very nice, pristine copy of the original "AWK Programming
Language" book, written by Aho, Kernigan and Weinberger setting just a
few feet away as I type this. Although I have never really taken the
time to wrap my mind around their usage, there really isn't much that
cannot be done in the way of text processing that cannot be handled
with a relative few lines of RegEx, Awk & Sed. Only reason I can think
of for someone to have a need for something different is in the case
where the speed of a compiled executable is needed.

I think without question that they must be the most arcane, yet
powerful programming tools ever devised

Regards,
David C..