I, for one, always prefer "simple" (or "simpler"). But, it seems to me, that "simpler" is not always compatible with the demands of the situation.

It seems to me (not that I'm by any means really qualified to make this assertion) that the situation you're addressing is, by its nature, not easily handled by anything "simple". In my experience this is espeically true (or perhaps I should say "tends to be true"...I guess it depends upon one's familiarity and accumen with regexs) when regexs are involved.

I think the strategy that gmargo proposed is elegantly "simple" in terms of regexs and I, like gmargo, am not sure why it wouldn't work for cases other than just for 'beta'.

At the end of the day, I guess I don't know what you're imagining is "simple" or "simpler". But that's probably just my misunderstanding of what you're looking for.

ack Albuquerque, NM

In reply to Re^5: match whitespace or beginning/end of string by ack
in thread match whitespace or beginning/end of string by azadian

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