(* RE - A regular expression library Copyright (C) 2001 Jerome Vouillon email: Jerome.Vouillon@pps.jussieu.fr This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, with linking exception; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA *) (** References: - {{:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xbd/re.html} re} - {{:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xsh/regcomp.html} regcomp} Example of how to use this module (to parse some IRC logs): {[ type msg = { time : string ; author : string ; content : string } let re = Core.compile (Re_posix.re "([^:].*:[^:]*:[^:]{2})<.([^>]+)> (.+)$") (* parse a line *) let match_line line = try let substrings = Core.exec re line in let groups = Core.get_all substrings in (* groups can be obtained directly by index within [substrings] *) Some { time = groups.(1); author = groups.(2); content = groups.(3) } with | Not_found -> None (* regex didn't match *) ;; ]} *) (* XXX Character classes *) exception Parse_error (** Errors that can be raised during the parsing of the regular expression *) exception Not_supported type opt = [ `ICase | `NoSub | `Newline ] (** Parsing of a Posix extended regular expression *) val re : ?opts:opt list -> string -> Core.t val re_result : ?opts:opt list -> string -> (Core.t, [ `Not_supported | `Parse_error ]) result (** [compile r] is defined as [Core.compile (Core.longest r)] *) val compile : Core.t -> Core.re (** [compile_pat ?opts regex] compiles the Posix extended regular expression [regexp] *) val compile_pat : ?opts:opt list -> string -> Core.re (* Deviation from the standard / ambiguities in the standard --------------------------------------------------------- We tested the behavior of the Linux library (glibc) and the Solaris library. (1) An expression [efg] should be parsed as [(ef)g]. All implementations parse it as [e(fg)]. (2) When matching the pattern "((a)|b)*" against the string "ab", the sub-expression "((a)|b)" should match "b", and the sub-expression "(a)" should not match anything. In both implementation, the sub-expression "(a)" matches "a". (3) When matching the pattern "(aa?)*" against the string "aaa", it is not clear whether the final match of the sub-expression "(aa?)" is the last "a" (all matches of the sub-expression are successively maximized), or "aa" (the final match is maximized). Both implementations implements the first case. (4) When matching the pattern "((a?)|b)*" against the string "ab", the sub-expression "((a?)|b)" should match the empty string at the end of the string (it is better to match the empty string than to match nothing). In both implementations, this sub-expression matches "b". (Strangely, in the Linux implementation, the sub-expression "(a?)" correctly matches the empty string at the end of the string) This library behaves the same way as the other libraries for all points, except for (2) and (4) where it follows the standard. The behavior of this library in theses four cases may change in future releases. *)