My first Python program -- a lexer

[Thomas Mlynarczyk]

John Machin schrieb:

> Single-character tokens like "<" may be more efficiently handled by
> doing a dict lookup after failing to find a match in the list of
> (name, regex) tuples.

Yes, I will keep that in mind. For the time being, I will use only 
regexes to keep the code simpler. Later, or when the need for a speedup 
arises, I can use your suggestion for optimizing my code. Depending on 
the tokens, it might even be better to use the dict lookup right away 
and the regex as a secondary means for more complex stuff.

[Mutually exclusive tokens = no ambiguities = same input -> same output]
> So what? That is useless knowledge. 

For the lexer, perhaps. Not for the user. An ambiguous lexer will be of 
no use.

> It is the ambiguous cases that you
> need to be concerned with.

Exactly. In which way does that contradict what I said?

[Using dict]
> No, not at all. The point is that you were not *using* any of the
> mapping functionality of the dict object, only ancillary methods like
> iteritems -- hence, you should not have been using a dict at all.

I /could/ have done it with a list of tuples. I use no functionality 
that /only/ a dict can do. So using a dict here is like using a truck 
for transporting a single sheet of paper?

Greetings,
Thomas

-- 
Ce n'est pas parce qu'ils sont nombreux à avoir tort qu'ils ont raison!
(Coluche)