Re^2: regex to rename last

This can be done without advanced features like lookaheads ...

It seems strange to me to see a regex lookahead (or, in general, a look-around) assertion described as 'advanced'. It's as if one had said "X can be done without advanced features like lexical variables or hard references." Present, I believe (although I haven't taken the trouble to confirm this), since version 5.0, this is a feature I consider part of the 'baseline' definition of Perl 5.

Whenever I allude to a feature like the \K regex operator or the defined-or operator, I feel obliged to mention that is is only available beginning with Perl version 5.whatever and I make an effort to highlight its presence in a code example by including a use 5.x; statement at the beginning, but I always assume that Perl 5 is the baseline for discussion nowadays. (Does anyone use a version 4 interpreter anymore?)

This is only idle curiosity, but can you say why you consider regex look-around assertions advanced?

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Re^3: regex to rename last _ with , by dmitri (Priest) on Sep 14, 2014 at 12:22 UTC
A couple of reasons. First, I can never remember the exact syntax of the look-around assertions, so I have to `perldoc perlre` each time I use one. This makes it advanced in my mind. I guess this is highly subjective, so your point is taken. Second, the more features are used in a regular expression, the more there is to translate when you want to use it in another tool. Doing without look-ahead brings the RE to a lower common denominator, so to speak.	[reply]
Re^4: regex to rename last _ with , by AppleFritter (Vicar) on Sep 14, 2014 at 14:57 UTC
First, I can never remember the exact syntax of the look-around assertions They're fairly mnemonic, actually: `(?=PATTERN)` - positive lookahead. Mnemonic: the following data equals (`=`; i.e. matches) the supplied pattern. `(?!PATTERN)` - negative lookahead. Mnemonic: the following data does not (`!`) match the pattern. `(?<=PATTERN)` - positive lookbehind. Mnemonic: the preceding (`<`) data equals (`=`; i.e. matches) the pattern. `(?<!PATTERN)` - negative lookbehind. Mnemonic: the preceding (`<`) data does not (`!`) match the pattern. Personally I might've chosen `(?>=PATTERN)` and `(?>!PATTERN)` for lookahead assertions to make the syntax of these symmetric in direction as well (though that would've clashed with non-backtracking patterns), but even this way I still think these are fairly easy to remember.	[reply]
Re^5: regex to rename last _ with , by Grimy (Pilgrim) on Sep 15, 2014 at 09:36 UTC
Look-ahead is used much more frequently than lookbehind, hence the shorter syntax. Perl is quite heavily Huffman coded. Look-behind is actually almost useless, since variable-length look-behind isn’t supported. It can be approximated using \K	[reply]