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Postings from May 2006
> >Including :skip(/<someotherrule>/). Yes, agreed, it's a huge > >improvement. I'd be more comfortable if the default rule to use for > >skipping was named <skip> instead of <ws>. (On IRC <sep> was also > >proposed, but the connection between :skip and <skip> is more > >immediately obvious.) > Yes, I like <skip> too. I too keep mistakely reading <ws> as > "WhiteSpace". For another datapoint, I like the idea of "<wb>" as word-boundary. After all, when you're tokenizing input, you're interested in the boundaries that separate tokens rather than the whitespace or what you do with it. Although I like the connection between <skip> and :skip, <skip> to me isn't very suggestive, and <ws> sounds too much like whitespace. <wb>, to me at least, is reminiscent of \b, and of Vim's \< \> for word boundaries. I'm sure I'll get used to whatever the final name is, though; just wanted to spread ideas. There are, to my mind, two ways of looking at whitespace: 1) Whitespace in regexes is ignored other than to delineate tokens in the regex. :skip() defines which characters in the input string are skipped over by the matcher (regex engine, whatever you want to call it). 2) Whitespace in regexes is significant. :skip() defines the meaning of a block of whitespace in the regular expression. AFAICS, both these states of mind come out to the same thing in the end (someone correct me if I'm wrong), but the naming scheme makes much more sense if you are thinking about it the first way. -- "For God's sake, please give it up. Fear it no less than the sensual passion, because it, too, may take up all your time and deprive you of your health, peace of mind and happiness in life." Wolfgang Bolyai, urging his son to give up his research on non-Euclidean geometryThread Previous | Thread Next