RE: [Expectperl-discuss] quotes around $scalar

[Roland G. <RGi...@cp...>]

Quoting "Blackstone, J. David" <jda...@ci...>:

>   Another thing I meant to say about regexes is I think it would be
> really cool if we could drop -re altogether.  To my mind it seems like the
> method should use ref to see if you've passed a qr// regex or a plain
> scalar.  Of course, my mind doesn't work like anyone else's, and it
would break
> backward compatibility.

Right, and that's why it's not gonna happen.  Please note that with the
new syntax with callbacks it's already the default:

  $exp->expect($timeout, 
               [ "regexp", \&callback ],
               [ qr/regexp/, \&callback ],);

And this is the much more powerful syntax, so I personally consider the
old syntax (where you have to test which regexp index has matched)
somewhat obsolete and only a beginners drug to get them hooked until
they realize the full power of callbacks... :-)

>   However, this seems to be more in keeping with Perl 6's newfound "A
> regex is not really a string" philosophy.  qr// was a great piece of
> syntax, and I'd like to see it be a more first-class member of the
language with
> some modules.

Hmm, I offhand don't know a means to find out if a given scalar already
contains a precompiled regexp.  If such a check is available I'd surely
implement it to make expect() even more DWIMmish in that regard, making
sure that a precompiled regexp wouldn't be handled with a substr match...

Anybody got an idea?

Roland
-- 
RGi...@cp...