From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Ilya Zakharevich Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: ELisp: special read syntax for regular expressions? Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 11:17:10 +0000 (UTC) Organization: U.C. Berkeley Math. Department. Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1207395659 22331 80.91.229.12 (5 Apr 2008 11:40:59 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 11:40:59 +0000 (UTC) Bcc: ilya To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Apr 05 13:41:31 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1Ji6m3-0006VM-B2 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 05 Apr 2008 13:41:31 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Ji6lQ-00063y-5u for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 05 Apr 2008 07:40:52 -0400 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!agate.berkeley.edu!ilya Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 19 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: powdermilk.math.berkeley.edu Original-X-Trace: agate.berkeley.edu 1207394230 5246 169.229.140.13 (5 Apr 2008 11:17:10 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@agate.berkeley.edu Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 11:17:10 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: trn [how to get a version via %-escapes???] with a custom header X-How-To-Reach-Me: The From: address is valid X-How-To-Disable-Cc: Put in the headers the line: Mail-Copies-To: never Originator: ilya@powdermilk.math.berkeley.edu Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:157713 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:53084 Archived-At: A few of years ago RMS asked me what one could do to make ELisp regular expressions more handable. Now, when the support for Perl REx in CPerl mode is finally finished, I think I know the answer: one needs to allow a special read syntax for regular expressions (the result being an ordinary string). This way one can avoid the acute backslashitis [by inverting \( and (, etc], the regular expressions may be specially indented, and the syntax highlighter would have a chance to remove most of the remaining complexity by proper highlighting (similar to CPerl one). What do you think? Yours, Ilya P.S. I put example of how my (Perl) test "code" is highlighted to ilyaz.org/software/tmp/CPerl-REx-highlight.png