Re: features of PCRE-OCaml

[Markus Mottl <mottl@miss.wu-wien.ac.at>]

On Fri, 08 Dec 2000, John Max Skaller wrote:
> Funny. Python 1.5.2 used the _same_ C library by Philip Hazel. :-)
> Given the fact this library builds DFA's instead of NFA's, Python
> ought to be faster than Perl. :-)

Well, the matching engine is not everything... ;)

> Note also, Python 2.0 uses a modified library which does something
> PCRE-OCaml cannot: it works with Unicode characters (supposedly).

To my knowledge, Phil Hazel is working on support for this. Unless the
PCRE-library supports Unicode (and unless OCaml does ;), there is not
much one can do about it...

> I do have a question though: is it possible to build a Str compatible
> interface to PCRE-Ocaml, and then make them both a standard part
> of the distribution? [The idea of a functional language using
> non-reentrant libraries seems slightly absurd to me :-]

I am not sure whether it is really necessary to have a Str compatible
interface: the regular expressions are already different so exchanging
the old against the new library would break code anyway.

- Markus Mottl

-- 
Markus Mottl, mottl@miss.wu-wien.ac.at, http://miss.wu-wien.ac.at/~mottl