builtin regular expressions?

[Steve Holden]

Mirco Wahab wrote:
> Thus spoke MRAB (on 2006-09-30 20:54):
> 
>>Antoine De Groote wrote:
>>
>>>I just have to learn accept the fact that Python is more verbose more
>>>often than Ruby (I don't know Perl really). 
>>
>>One of the differences between the Python way and the Perl way is that
>>the Perl way has a side-effect: Perl assigns to the variables $1, $2,
>>etc. each time you execute a regular expression whereas Python just
>>returns a match object for each, so it's not overwriting the results of
>>the previous one. I find the Python way cleaner.
> 
> 
> This statement reduces to the fact, that
> 
>  - in Python you keep the matches if you want,
>    but drop them if you don't
> 
>    import re
>    text = "this is 5 some 89 stuff 12 with numbers 21 interspersed"
>    matches =  re.split('\D+', text)
> 
>  - in Perl you keep the matches if you want,
>    but drop them if you don't
> 
>    $text = "this is 5 some 89 stuff 12 with numbers 21 interspersed";
>    @matches = $text=~/(\d+)/g;
> 
> I fail to see the benefit of a re-object, I consider these to
> be just there because regexes aren't in the core language.
> 
Fine. Just because you fail to see the benefit, however, that doesn't 
mean there isn't one. Maybe we just aren't explaining it in terms you 
can appreciate?

regards
  Stve
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