Re: Alternatives to Regexps

Ray Dillinger <bear@sonic.net>
10 Jul 1998 21:00:59 -0400

          From comp.compilers
Related articles
Alternatives to Regexps john@dwaf-hri.pwv.gov.za (John Carter) (1998-07-08)
Re: Alternatives to Regexps ak@muc.de (1998-07-10)
Re: Alternatives to Regexps torbenm@diku.dk (Torben Mogensen) (1998-07-10)
Re: Alternatives to Regexps jamz@cdsnet.net (1998-07-10)
Re: Alternatives to Regexps d.rourke@arpc.com (Daniel Rourke) (1998-07-10)
Re: Alternatives to Regexps bear@sonic.net (Ray Dillinger) (1998-07-10)
Re: Alternatives to Regexps bpr@best.com (Brian Rogoff) (1998-07-10)
Re: Alternatives to Regexps mav@naxos.esat.kuleuven.ac.be (Maurizio Vitale) (1998-07-10)
Re: Alternatives to Regexps lord@emf.emf.net (1998-07-11)
Re: Alternatives to Regexps bromage@cs.mu.OZ.AU (1998-07-11)
Re: Alternatives to Regexps cfc@world.std.com (Chris F Clark) (1998-07-13)
Re: Alternatives to Regexps torbenm@diku.dk (Torben Mogensen) (1998-07-13)
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From: Ray Dillinger <bear@sonic.net>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: 10 Jul 1998 21:00:59 -0400
Organization: Cognitive Dissidents
References: 98-07-057
Keywords: DFA

John Carter wrote:


> implementations of regexps sub-languages found in Perl/Emacs/grep
> etc. etc. all have major extensions to the theoretic version and all
> have slight differences and all have complex special case rules.


> So what I'm seeking are pointers to a far more readable, elegant and
> consistent pragmatic pattern recognition language.


As far as I know, they don't exist. A regular expression is
isomorphic to a state machine, which is the simplest of the classical
automata. All the other classical linear automata (petri nets,
nondeterministic automata, infinite automata, and turing machines to
name a few) seem to have minimal representations which are far more
complex.


On the other hand, you might look to see what automata have properties
you like and *try* to develop a readable expression syntax which is
isomorphic to them in the same way that regular expressions are
isomorphic to DFSA.


Ray
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