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Re: [xsl] Any likely prospect of lookahead/ lookbehind regex support in future XPath/XSLT?
Subject: Re: [xsl] Any likely prospect of lookahead/ lookbehind regex support in future XPath/XSLT? From: "Michael Kay mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Fri, 16 May 2014 18:01:13 -0000 |
It does no harm to ask. Raise the request as a formal comment on the XPath 3.1 specification. I don't think anyone will object on principle, provided that the extension is well-defined in terms of Unicode, easy to specify, and widely available in regex libraries. They may object on the grounds of resources and timescales. Michael Kay Saxonica On 16 May 2014, at 17:26, David Sewell dsewell@xxxxxxxxxxxx <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > I'm guessing that the answer is going to be "no", but am just wondering whether there has been discussion of extending the standard regular expression support in XPath to include lookahead and lookbehind assertions (both positive and negative). I'm also guessing that this could be more than a little tricky for implementors. > > Every now and then I find cases where replacement or xsl:analyze-string are made hugely easier by availability of those features. For example, at the moment I'm doing a transform to convert text like > > VIII, 9, 150 n. 4, 179-80 and n. 3 > > into something like > > <num value="8">VIII</num>, <num n="pg">9</num>, <num n="pg">150</num> n. 4, <num n="pg">179-80</num> and n. 3 > > so that I can create links to the pages and page ranges. It's a lot more straightforward to do via xsl:analyze-string when I can use a negative lookbehind assertion to ignore numerals preceded by "n. ". > > I appreciate the ability to do this in Saxon via an (unsupported) extension, but having it part of the standard would mean less worry about whether code that works now might not work later. > > David > > -- > David Sewell, Editorial and Technical Manager > ROTUNDA, The University of Virginia Press > PO Box 400314, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4314 USA > Email: dsewell@xxxxxxxxxxxx Tel: +1 434 924 9973 > Web: http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/
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