[Python-Dev] unicode regex quickie: should a newline be the same thing as a linebreak?

[Guido van Rossum]

[Swede]
> >in the current 're' engine, a newline is chr(10) and nothing
> >else.
> >
> >however, in the new unicode aware engine, I used the new
> >LINEBREAK predicate instead, but it turned out to break one
> >of the tests in the current test suite:
> >
> >    sre.match('a\rb', 'a.b') => None
> >
> >(unicode adds chr(13), chr(28), chr(29), chr(30), and also
> >unichr(133), unichr(8232), and unichr(8233) to the list of
> >line breaking codes)
> >
> >what's the best way to deal with this?  I see three alter-
> >natives:
> >
> >a) stick to the old definition, and use chr(10) also for
> >   unicode strings

[Finn]
> In the ORO matcher that comes with jpython, the dot matches all but
> chr(10). But that is bad IMO. Unicode should use the LINEBREAK
> predicate.

There's no need for invention.  We're supposed to be as close to Perl
as reasonable.  What does Perl do?

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)