Re:Is it a must for every programmer to learn regular expres...
by praptak on Thursday August 16, 2012 @05:06AM
(#4390517)
> These things just are - written into the laws of the world. They are discovered - not invented.
This applies only to the theoretical computer science regexes. The practical regexes are very different in this aspect.
Practical regexes are neither discovered nor invented - they are constructed. The theoretical regexes are just the basis but on top of that there's a lot of features added. Some of them are just syntactic sugar for theoretical regexes but others actually make the language non-regular.
Groups that match what previous named groups have matched are definitely in this category.
This applies only to the theoretical computer science regexes. The practical regexes are very different in this aspect.
Practical regexes are neither discovered nor invented - they are constructed. The theoretical regexes are just the basis but on top of that there's a lot of features added. Some of them are just syntactic sugar for theoretical regexes but others actually make the language non-regular.
Groups that match what previous named groups have matched are definitely in this category.