On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 12:56 PM, Steven D'Aprano steve@pearwood.info wrote:
On 28/03/13 12:38, Chris Angelico wrote:
On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 12:25 PM, Steven D'Aprano steve@pearwood.info wrote:
We do this:
x = Decimal(some_string) y = x**3 z = x.exp()
not this:
y = Decimal(some_string)**3 z = Decimal(some_string).exp()
hoping that the string will be in a cache and the conversion will be fast. So why do we do this?
result = re.match(some_string, text) other_result = re.match(some_string, other_text)
Would it be better if, instead of:
pat = re.compile(some_string)
it were spelled:
pat = re.RegExp(some_string)
? It'd match Decimal and so on, while still being exactly the same thing ultimately - you turn the textual regex into an object.
No, you seem to have missed my point.
I don't care whether we have a builder like re.compile() that turns a string into a regular expression object, or we use the RegExp type constructor directly. What I care about is that we don't recommend that people rely on the cache to handle that conversion, as Terry seems to be suggesting.
Yes, that's what I mean. If compile were renamed RegExp and the cache abolished, would people find this odd, or would they be happy to do their own compiled-regex retention? I suspect the latter. There could still be (non-caching) re.match and friends, but it'd be understood that they are less efficient for multiple usage.
ChrisA