having a lot of strong responses in my head to reading the gentle introduction to regular expressions in the python docs https://docs.python.org/3/howto/regex.html#regex-howto
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not like getting upset
it's just like. ok. i remember SNOBOL. i remember fortran referencing line numbers. providing string inputs to the regex compiler feels like that
tiny, highly specialized programming language
HUGE props for calling it a programming language. great start
as well as "embedded inside python" which is another important point
You can also use REs to modify a string or to split it apart in various ways.
regex actually cannot do this. like the thing being called an RE or "regular expression" here cannot express modifications to a string nor even separation. this is not pedantry
@hipsterelectron I think you should read "use REs to" here as meaning "use REs in the process of" or something, which is demonstrably true
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i do like the immediate discussion of the matching engine introducing implicit semantics. great great way to introduce students to complex topics while maintaining a consistent focus at first
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The regular expression language is relatively small and restricted, so not all possible string processing tasks can be done using regular expressions.
in fact regex itself can only perform matching. matching html with regex is not very far from performing the complex stateful substitutions that are commonplace with classical regex APIs
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