On 11/26/2013 11:31 PM, Alex Seewald wrote:
For a match object, m, m.group(0) is the semantics for accessing the entire span of the match. For newcomers to regular expressions who are not familiar with the concept of a 'group', the name group(0) is counter-intuitive. A more natural-language-esque alias to group(0), perhaps 'matchSpan', could reduce the time novices spend from idea to working code.
I do agree and support such a change. Actually, I remember it took me some time to find that expression, precisely. (However, isn't it group() alone, without 0? Haven't used re for a while...) But "m.matchspan" is for the least redondant (since m is a match result). "m.span" or "m.snippet" would nicely do the job, wouldn't it?
Of course, this convenience would introduce a bit of complexity to the codebase, so it may or may not be worth it to add an alias to group(0). What do people think?
At first sight, does not seem that complicated (also, the code exist for group()). How clear is the existing implementation? Denis