From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Drew Adams" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: RE: Structural regular expressions Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2010 08:04:06 -0700 Message-ID: References: <87sk1lt4uf.fsf@gmail.com> <46875.130.55.118.19.1284065220.squirrel@webmail.lanl.gov><5C7E009338A34E35BB58F0C877A8AD9E@us.oracle.com> <87iq2dt3w0.fsf@catnip.gol.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1284217558 311 80.91.229.12 (11 Sep 2010 15:05:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2010 15:05:58 +0000 (UTC) To: "'Miles Bader'" , Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Sep 11 17:05:55 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OuReG-0003v5-9j for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 11 Sep 2010 17:05:52 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:41061 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OuReD-0001Wr-H3 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 11 Sep 2010 11:05:45 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=49119 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OuRe4-0001U2-IT for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 11 Sep 2010 11:05:39 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OuRe2-0002Yv-5B for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 11 Sep 2010 11:05:35 -0400 Original-Received: from rcsinet10.oracle.com ([148.87.113.121]:58875) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OuRdy-0002Xy-LP; Sat, 11 Sep 2010 11:05:30 -0400 Original-Received: from acsinet15.oracle.com (acsinet15.oracle.com [141.146.126.227]) by rcsinet10.oracle.com (Switch-3.4.2/Switch-3.4.2) with ESMTP id o8BF5QjI008552 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK); Sat, 11 Sep 2010 15:05:27 GMT Original-Received: from acsmt354.oracle.com (acsmt354.oracle.com [141.146.40.154]) by acsinet15.oracle.com (Switch-3.4.2/Switch-3.4.1) with ESMTP id o8BEnBB0017228; Sat, 11 Sep 2010 15:05:25 GMT Original-Received: from abhmt003.oracle.com by acsmt355.oracle.com with ESMTP id 586249961284217451; Sat, 11 Sep 2010 08:04:11 -0700 Original-Received: from dradamslap1 (/10.159.221.103) by default (Oracle Beehive Gateway v4.0) with ESMTP ; Sat, 11 Sep 2010 08:04:10 -0700 X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook 11 In-Reply-To: <87iq2dt3w0.fsf@catnip.gol.com> Thread-Index: ActRWFQXf0A/ZbvtSaS+yjosDJtegwAY/QRg X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.5931 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:129984 Archived-At: > > That's the real point, I believe: the paper touts the use of regexps > > to divide text into chunks that match - chunks that are not > > necessarily lines, in order to then act on those chunks in some way. > > Not a good base, I think -- regexps are not really powerful > enough to do the job well. That's too vague. Good base (= ?) for what? Do what job? How well is well? We use regexps to select chunks of text all the time in Emacs. Regexps are not sufficiently powerful to select an _arbitrary_ chunk, but so what? You can use them to select lots of kinds of chunks (reg langs + Emacs "regexp" extensions) - certainly more than just lines. Nothing limits us to regexps (= one of my points), but regexps can be useful in selecting chunks of text.