Named regexp variables, an extension proposal.

[Edward Elliott]

Paddy wrote:

> I have another use case.
> If you want to match a comma separated list of words you end up writing
> what constitutes a word twice, i.e:
>   r"\w+[,\w+]"

That matches one or more alphanum characters followed by exactly one comma,
plus, or alphanum.  I think you meant 
r'\w+(,\w+)*'

or if you don't care where or how many commas there are
r'[\w,]*'

or if previous but has to start with alphanum
r'\w[\w,]*'


> As what constitues a word gets longer, you have to repeat a longer RE
> fragment so the fact that it is a match of a comma separated list is
> lost, e.g:
>   r"[a-zA-Z_]\w+[,[a-zA-Z_]\w+]"

That's why god invented % interpolation.


-- 
Edward Elliott
UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall)
complangpython at eddeye dot net