[boost] [ANN] xpressive 0.9

From: Eric Niebler (eric_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-09-02 19:50:37

It's been nearly a year since I first announced my intention to build a 
new regular expression engine. It has finally reached a point where I am 
comfortable recommending it for general use.

<< xpressive 0.9 >>

http://boost-sandbox.sourceforge.net/libs/xpressive

- What is it?
It is a regular expression engine which allows you to author regexes as 
expression templates (like Spirit) *or* as strings (like Boost.Regex).

When written as an expression template, the regex is syntax-checked at 
compile-time and statically bound for maximal inlining and optimization.
(See http://tinyurl.com/6k9p8 for more detail.)

Also, regular expressions can nest and call each other recursively, 
which gives you the power of a context free grammar. That makes it 
appropriate for simple parsing tasks.
(See http://tinyurl.com/4enn4 for more detail.)

- What's the interface like?
xpressive is a Boost.Regex work-alike. It follows the regex 
standardization proposal closely, but not too close! You can read about 
all the differences in xpressive's documentation.

The domain-specific embeded language for xpressive is heavily influenced 
by Spirit.

- Where can I read more?
xpressive's documentation is online at:
http://boost-sandbox.sourceforge.net/libs/xpressive

- Where can I download the code?
You can get the xpressive zip archive at:
http://boost-sandbox.sourceforge.net/xpressive.zip
It contains the source code and the documentation in PDF format.

Alternatively, you can get xpressive directly from the boost-sandbox. 
Source code is at /boost-sandbox/boost/xpressive, and the regression 
test and documentation are at /boost-sandbox/libs/xpressive.

Note: this is version 0.9. Check out the "Not Yet Implemented" section 
in the documentation to see why. I'll be working towards v1.0 in the 
coming weeks and months, but I am confident at this point that the 
interface is not likely to change. What's there is stable and solid and 
ready for (ab)use.

Original announcement of xpressive:
http://lists.boost.org/MailArchives/boost/msg55623.php

Cheers,

-- 
Eric Niebler
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com