GNU Info
(guile.info)Rx Interface
Rx Interface
------------
[FIXME: this is taken from Gary and Mark's quick summaries and should be
reviewed and expanded. Rx is pretty stable, so could already be done!]
Guile includes an interface to Tom Lord's Rx library (currently only to
POSIX regular expressions). Use of the library requires a two step
process: compile a regular expression into an efficient structure, then
use the structure in any number of string comparisons.
For example, given the regular expression `abc.' (which matches any
string containing `abc' followed by any single character):
guile> (define r (regcomp "abc."))
guile> r
#<rgx abc.>
guile> (regexec r "abc")
#f
guile> (regexec r "abcd")
#((0 . 4))
guile>
The definitions of `regcomp' and `regexec' are as follows:
- primitive: regcomp pattern [flags]
Compile the regular expression pattern using POSIX rules. Flags is
optional and should be specified using symbolic names:
- Variable: REG_EXTENDED
use extended POSIX syntax
- Variable: REG_ICASE
use case-insensitive matching
- Variable: REG_NEWLINE
allow anchors to match after newline characters in the string
and prevents `.' or `[^...]' from matching newlines.
The `logior' procedure can be used to combine multiple flags. The
default is to use POSIX basic syntax, which makes `+' and `?'
literals and `\+' and `\?' operators. Backslashes in PATTERN must
be escaped if specified in a literal string e.g., `"\\(a\\)\\?"'.
- primitive: regexec regex string [match-pick] [flags]
Match STRING against the compiled POSIX regular expression REGEX.
MATCH-PICK and FLAGS are optional. Possible flags (which can be
combined using the logior procedure) are:
- Variable: REG_NOTBOL
The beginning of line operator won't match the beginning of
STRING (presumably because it's not the beginning of a line)
- Variable: REG_NOTEOL
Similar to REG_NOTBOL, but prevents the end of line operator
from matching the end of STRING.
If no match is possible, regexec returns #f. Otherwise MATCH-PICK
determines the return value:
`#t' or unspecified: a newly-allocated vector is returned,
containing pairs with the indices of the matched part of STRING
and any substrings.
`""': a list is returned: the first element contains a nested list
with the matched part of STRING surrounded by the the unmatched
parts. Remaining elements are matched substrings (if any). All
returned substrings share memory with STRING.
`#f': regexec returns #t if a match is made, otherwise #f.
vector: the supplied vector is returned, with the first element
replaced by a pair containing the indices of the matched portion
of STRING and further elements replaced by pairs containing the
indices of matched substrings (if any).
list: a list will be returned, with each member of the list
specified by a code in the corresponding position of the supplied
list:
a number: the numbered matching substring (0 for the entire match).
`#\<': the beginning of STRING to the beginning of the part matched
by regex.
`#\>': the end of the matched part of STRING to the end of STRING.
`#\c': the "final tag", which seems to be associated with the "cut
operator", which doesn't seem to be available through the posix
interface.
e.g., `(list #\< 0 1 #\>)'. The returned substrings share memory
with STRING.
Here are some other procedures that might be used when using regular
expressions:
- primitive: compiled-regexp? obj
Test whether obj is a compiled regular expression.
- primitive: regexp->dfa regex [flags]
- primitive: dfa-fork dfa
- primitive: reset-dfa! dfa
- primitive: dfa-final-tag dfa
- primitive: dfa-continuable? dfa
- primitive: advance-dfa! dfa string
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