xsl-list
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [xsl] two regexp related questions

2011-05-19 16:36:57
On 19/05/2011 18:45, Julian Reschke wrote:
Hi there,

I've got two regexp-related questions.

1) Is it correct that XSLT/XPath2's regular expressions do not support non-capturing groups (as shown in <http://www.exampledepot.com/egs/java.util.regex/NoGroup.html>)?

Yes. This is being added in 3.0.

2) With respect to analyze-string, and the captured regex-groups:

I'm using a regex like

  ([A-Z]+) = ([A-Z]+) ( ; ([A-Z]+) = ([A-Z]+) )*

for matching things like

  a=b;c=d;e=f


Why not use the regex

([A-Z]+) = ([A-Z]+)

and rely on xsl:matching-substring being called multiple times?

Alternatively, first use tokenize() to split on the semicolons, and then put each token through xsl:analyze-string.

Personally, I find long regexes very difficult to get right, and try to split the task up into small pieces that I can understand and debug.

Michael Kay
Saxonica

--~------------------------------------------------------------------
XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
To unsubscribe, go to: http://lists.mulberrytech.com/xsl-list/
or e-mail: <mailto:xsl-list-unsubscribe(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com>
--~--