[Tutor] Amazing power of Regular Expressions...

[Alan Gauld]

"Jonathon Sisson" <sisson.j at gmail.com> wrote

> of them they're addicting... As Alan Gauld stated in another thread 
> (I'm
> pretty sure it was Alan): You'll get to the point that you want to 
> use
> (regular expressions) all the time, even if they aren't the right 
> tool

Nope, it wasn't me, maybe Danny.

But I sure agree with it. The problem with Regex is that they can
be just a bit too powerful. To cite another programming proverb,
this time by Bjarne Stroustrup I think:

"C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot;
C++ makes it  harder, but when you do,
it blows away your whole leg."

Regex can be like that too.

> Regular Expressions:  learn them, love them, use them...but put the
> sword down if a pen can handle the job better.

A great summary.

-- 
Alan Gauld
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld