<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Hi John,<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I don't think this represents a good direction. IMHO, it is not as easy to read (or maintain) for two reasons:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">1) The Unix grep and sed commands popularized a regular expression syntax that has been leveraged by numerous languages and libraries, and hence, most developers want that familiarity.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">2) The syntax presented by Swift Verbal Expressions is noisy, and hence it lacks the clear and concise nature of the syntax used by grep and sed.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Cheers,</div><div class="">-Patrick</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jan 31, 2016, at 10:48 PM, John Randolph <<a href="mailto:jcr@mac.com" class="">jcr@mac.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">On Jan 31, 2016, at 7:39 PM, Chris Lattner via swift-evolution <<a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" class="">swift-evolution@swift.org</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class="" style="font-family: MyriadSet-Text; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">On Jan 31, 2016, at 8:32 AM, Patrick Gili via swift-evolution <<a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" class="">swift-evolution@swift.org</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">There have been several threads that have discussed the notion of a regular expression literals. However, I didn't see anyone putting together a formal proposal, and hence I took the liberty to do so. I would appreciate discussion and comments on the proposal:</div></div></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I am +1 on the concept of adding regex literals to Swift, but -1 on this proposal.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Specifically, instead of introducing regex literals, I’d suggest that you investigate introducing regex’s to the pattern grammar, which is what Swift uses for matching already. Regex’s should be usable in the cases of a switch, for example. Similarly, they should be able to bind variables directly to subpatterns.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Further, I highly recommend checking out Perl 6’s regular expressions. They are a community that has had an obsessive passion for regular expressions, and in Perl 6 they were given the chance to reinvent the wheel based on what they learned. What they came up with is very powerful, and pretty good all around.</div></div></div></blockquote><br class=""></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class="">Perl 6’s regex implementation looks like a logical progression of the grep style as we’ve come to know it over the years, but I’d really like to see Swift go with something like the Verbal Expressions approach.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><a href="https://github.com/VerbalExpressions/SwiftVerbalExpressions" class="">https://github.com/VerbalExpressions/SwiftVerbalExpressions</a></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class="">All the power is there, but it’s far more readable.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class="">-jcr</div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></body></html>