Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach)

Eric Roode wrote:
>
> Unfortunately, as Richard Proctor pointed out, ?m is taken. Perhaps
> (?[list|of|openers)  and  (?]list|of|closers)   ?
>
> Does that look too bizarre, with the lone square bracket in each?
> Or does that serve to make it mnemonic (which is my intention)?

Actually, I personally like this, and was on the verge of suggesting
similar myself, believe it or not. It makes a lot of sense to me. I
don't like the m vs M because that smacks too much of negation for my
tastes.

> And --- can-of-worms time --- we're only intending the list elements
> to be constant characters, but that syntax *looks* like it can take a
> regular expression for any of the list elements

Now *that* sounds cool, I like it!

What if the RFC only suggested the addition of two new constructs, (?[)
and (?]), which did nested matches. The rest would be bound by standard
regex constructs and your imagination!

   /(?[\d+)[\s\w]+?(?])/

Would match

  01HelloThere10
  999 Important Mesage 999

But not

  01HelloThere01
  999 Important Message 9

That is, the ?] simply takes whatever the closest ?[ matched and
reverses it, verbatim, including ordering, case, and number of
characters. The only trick would be a way to get what "reverses it"
means correct.

> Sound about right?

I think I'm really starting to like this now... :-)

-Nate