"Greg" == Greg Ewing
writes:
Greg> Stephen J. Turnbull wrote: >> But you could have string objects (or a derivative) grow a >> "compiled_regexp" attribute internally. Greg> That would make the core dependent on the re module, which I Greg> think would be a bad idea. Probably. Greg> Personally I like the way the compilation step is made at Greg> least somewhat explicit. Regular expressions are not Greg> strings; a string is just one way of representing a regular Greg> expression. There could potentially be other representations Greg> that compile to the same re object. I guess I agree, but I would put the emphasis elsewhere. Something like, think of the call to compile() as a declaration that this string (or other representation) represents a regular expression. The actual compilation is an accidental side effect: it could be postponed to the first call of .match() or .search(). So I guess I would prefer a nomenclature like r = re.RegExp (string) over r = re.compile (string) Not a big deal though. -- School of Systems and Information Engineering http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN Ask not how you can "do" free software business; ask what your business can "do for" free software.