Regular Expressions

[John Machin]

On Feb 11, 9:25 pm, Steven D'Aprano
<s... at REMOVE.THIS.cybersource.com.au> wrote:
> On Sun, 11 Feb 2007 07:05:30 +0000, Steve Holden wrote:
> > Geoff Hill wrote:
> >> What's the way to go about learning Python's regular expressions? I feel
> >> like such an idiot - being so strong in a programming language but knowing
> >> nothing about RE.
>
> > In fact that's a pretty smart stance.
>
> That's a little harsh -- regexes have their place, together with pointer
> arithmetic, bit manipulations, reverse polish notation and goto. The
> problem is when people use them inappropriately e.g. using a regex when a
> simple string.find will do.

Thanks for the tip-off, Steve and Steven. Looks like I'll have to
start hiding my 12C (datecode 2214) with its "GTO" button under the
loose floor-board whenever I hear a knock at the door ;-) Looks like
Agner Fog's gone a million, and there'll be a special place in hell
for people who combine regexes with bit manipulation, like Navarro &
Raffinot. And we won't even mention Heikki Hy,*7g^54d3j+__=