What is Python's answer to Perl 6?

[Reinhold Birkenfeld]

A.M. Kuchling wrote:
> On 30 Oct 2004 15:42:46 +0300, 
> 	Ville Vainio <ville at spammers.com> wrote:
>> Well, if they are any good we'll just port them to Python. "import
>> re2" and we are all set. Everyone wins.
> 
> I don't think so.  Perl5 regexes are pretty independent of the rest of the
> language, but Perl6's are interweaved with the rest of Perl's syntax, so I
> don't think we'll ever see a Perl6-equivalent of PCRE.  

The interweaving is only important if you "design your program as one
big regex" ;). There is the possibility of embedded closures, OK, but
one can live without it.

The assignment of variables in regexes can surely be reproduced in a
PCRE lib.

And I can imagine to wrap up the Perl6 concept of grammars in a class
that then can resolve referenced regexes.

(Perl6 proposes this sort of syntax for grouping regexes:

grammar Some_Grammar {
    rule identifier { [a-z]* }
    rule plus_expression { <identifier> \+ <identifier> }
    etc.
}

)

I just think that the new RE syntax is much cleaner and easier to read.
We'll see how other languages adapt or not.

Reinhold

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