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Regular Expressions (Regex) - Your Thoughts?

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phitsc:
To all you regex lovers: if you happen to also be a FARR user, please install my FarrWebMetaSearch plugin and write a search for your favourite web site. Then post it on the forum or send it to me directly for inclusion with FarrWebMetaSearch :)

By the way, the following web site has served me well when working with (not too complicated) regexes: http://www.regextester.com/index2.html

40hz:
I *think* I read a number of years ago about AWK and it being common to have TCL/Tk front ends for it. Is that right, or am I confused there?
-Renegade (November 28, 2010, 08:13 PM)
--- End quote ---

Never saw that although there's no reason why you couldn't wrap a GUI around an AWK program's functionality. Don't know why you'd bother since there's already things like GUI search and replace utilities where it's already been done. Also sorta defeats the purpose of AWK since it's really intended to be used as a programming language rather than an app.

Note: you can do much (or all) of what AWK does with PERL. If my memory serves, I seem to remember Larry Wall cited AWK (along with SED and shell) as contributing influences on the design of his baby.

One interesting thing about AWK is that it's like riding a bike. It takes practice to use it effectively. But once you learn it, you never seem to forget. I haven't done any serious AWK-ing for a number of years. But I had an oddball project a few months ago where an AWK script was the perfect way to get the job done.

After a few false starts, and a look in the manual (RTFM right? ;D), I was back in business. I doubt I'd be able to do that with many other languages I've learned and allowed to lapse over the years. That alone is testimonial to just how logical and well designed a tool AWK is IMHO.

:Thmbsup:

Also +1 w/rjbull on The AWK Programming Language book. One of the clearest and best written computer books of all time. Too bad they couldn't all be like that.

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