Re: [boost] Re: Announcing: xpressive

From: Brian McNamara (lorgon_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-11-17 23:19:51

(This message is relatively content-free. :) )

On Mon, Nov 17, 2003 at 06:19:24PM -0800, Eric Niebler wrote:
> (Lengthy rationale follows...)

I agree that it is desirable to be able to _statically_ (at
compile-time) analyze and "compute on" regexps.

The main disadvantage is that it forces us to write regexps "ugly":

   +(_1 = "hello ") >> "world"

rather than "pretty":

   regexp("(hello )+world")

.

<wishful thinking>

If only "strings" were legal "template value parameters" in C++.  Then
we could write code like

   typedef regexp< "(hello )+world" >::type MyRegex;
   ... MyRegex::match( someString ) ...

Aaaaaah.  :)

</wishful>

-- 
-Brian McNamara (lorgon_at_[hidden])