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For 2023 (and 2024 ...) - we are now fully retired from IT training.
We have made many, many friends over 25 years of teaching about Python, Tcl, Perl, PHP, Lua, Java, C and C++ - and MySQL, Linux and Solaris/SunOS too. Our training notes are now very much out of date, but due to upward compatability most of our examples remain operational and even relevant ad you are welcome to make us if them "as seen" and at your own risk.

Lisa and I (Graham) now live in what was our training centre in Melksham - happy to meet with former delegates here - but do check ahead before coming round. We are far from inactive - rather, enjoying the times that we are retired but still healthy enough in mind and body to be active!

I am also active in many other area and still look after a lot of web sites - you can find an index ((here))
Regular expressions made easy - building from components

There seems to be a certain macho desire in many programmer's minds to write a single complicated regular expression to match against an input line, ignorning the structured approach that everyone accepts quite cheerfully in almost every other case. Have a look at this Python line:

wholeline = r"\d\d-...-\d\d\d\d\s+(\d\d):(\d\d):(\d\d.\d\d),\s+(-?\d+\.\d+),\s+(-?\d+\.\d+),(-?\d+\.\d+),\s+(-?\d+\.\d+),(-?\d+\.\d+),\s+(-?\d+\.\d+)"

Impressive, isn't it?
Yes
Easy to follow, isn't it?
No!

Much better to build it up from a series of components:

date = r"\d\d-...-\d\d\d\d"
time = r"(\d\d):(\d\d):(\d\d.\d\d)"
whitespace = r"\s+"
floater = r"(-?\d+\.\d+)"
wholeline = date + whitespace + time + "," + whitespace + \
  floater + "," + whitespace + floater + "," + floater + \
  "," + whitespace + floater + "," + floater + "," + \
  whitespace + floater


These examples are from the Python Course I have just concluded - the full example is here - where a log file was to be analysed and a short report generated to highlight any changes in readings of over 1% from one line of the data to the next in any of the data columns.

(written 2007-08-16)

 
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
Y115 - Additional Python Facilities
  [183] The elegance of Python - (2005-01-19)
  [208] Examples - Gadfly, NI Number, and Tcl to C interface - (2005-02-10)
  [239] What and why for the epoch - (2005-03-08)
  [463] Splitting the difference - (2005-10-13)
  [663] Python to MySQL - (2006-03-31)
  [672] Keeping your regular expressions simple - (2006-04-05)
  [753] Python 3000 - the next generation - (2006-06-09)
  [901] Python - listing out the contents of all variables - (2006-10-21)
  [1043] Sending an email from Python - (2007-01-18)
  [1136] Buffering output - why it is done and issues raised in Tcl, Perl, Python and PHP - (2007-04-06)
  [1149] Turning objects into something you can store - Pickling (Python) - (2007-04-15)
  [1336] Ignore case in Regular Expression - (2007-09-08)
  [1337] A series of tyre damages - (2007-09-08)
  [1876] Python Regular Expressions - (2008-11-08)
  [2407] Testing code in Python - doctest, unittest and others - (2009-09-16)
  [2435] Serialization - storing and reloading objects - (2009-10-04)
  [2462] Python - how it saves on compile time - (2009-10-20)
  [2655] Python - what is going on around me? - (2010-02-28)
  [2721] Regular Expressions in Python - (2010-04-14)
  [2745] Connecting Python to sqlite and MySQL databases - (2010-04-28)
  [2746] Model - View - Controller demo, Sqlite - Python 3 - Qt4 - (2010-04-29)
  [2764] Python decorators - your own, staticmethod and classmethod - (2010-05-14)
  [2765] Running operating system commands from your Python program - (2010-05-14)
  [2786] Factory methods and SqLite in use in a Python teaching example - (2010-05-29)
  [2790] Joining a MySQL table from within a Python program - (2010-06-02)
  [3089] Python regular expressions - repeating, splitting, lookahead and lookbehind - (2010-12-17)
  [3442] A demonstration of how many Python facilities work together - (2011-09-16)
  [3469] Teaching dilemma - old tricks and techniques, or recent enhancements? - (2011-10-08)
  [4085] JSON from Python - first principles, easy example - (2013-05-13)
  [4211] Handling JSON in Python (and a csv, marshall and pickle comparison) - (2013-11-16)
  [4298] Python - an interesting application - (2014-09-18)
  [4439] Json is the new marshall, pickle and cPickle / Python - (2015-02-22)
  [4451] Running an operating system command from your Python program - the new way with the subprocess module - (2015-03-06)
  [4536] Json load from URL, recursive display, Python 3.4 - (2015-10-14)
  [4593] Command line parameter handling in Python via the argparse module - (2015-12-08)
  [4709] Some gems from Intermediate Python - (2016-10-30)

T247 - Tcl/Tk - Advanced Regular Expressions
  [943] Matching within multiline strings, and ignoring case in regular expressions - (2006-11-25)
  [1195] Regular Express Primer - (2007-05-20)
  [1410] Tcl / regsub - changing a string and using interesting bits - (2007-10-27)
  [1412] Sparse and Greedy matching - Tcl 8.4 - (2007-10-27)
  [1613] Regular expression for 6 digits OR 25 digits - (2008-04-16)
  [4205] Regular Expression Substitution - Tcl - (2013-11-12)

R109 - Ruby - Strings and Regular Expressions
  [970] String duplication - x in Perl, * in Python and Ruby - (2006-12-07)
  [986] puts - opposite of chomp in Ruby - (2006-12-15)
  [987] Ruby v Perl - interpollating variables - (2006-12-15)
  [1588] String interpretation in Ruby - (2008-03-21)
  [1875] What are exceptions - Python based answer - (2008-11-08)
  [1887] Ruby Programming Course - Saturday and Sunday - (2008-11-16)
  [1891] Ruby to access web services - (2008-11-16)
  [2293] Regular Expressions in Ruby - (2009-07-16)
  [2295] The dog is not in trouble - (2009-07-17)
  [2608] Search and replace in Ruby - Ruby Regular Expressions - (2010-01-31)
  [2614] Neatly formatting results into a table - (2010-02-01)
  [2621] Ruby collections and strings - some new examples - (2010-02-03)
  [2623] Object Oriented Ruby - new examples - (2010-02-03)
  [2980] Ruby - examples of regular expressions, inheritance and polymorphism - (2010-10-02)
  [3424] Divide 10000 by 17. Do you get 588.235294117647, 588.24 or 588? - Ruby and PHP - (2011-09-08)
  [3621] Matching regular expressions, and substitutions, in Ruby - (2012-02-23)
  [3757] Ruby - a teaching example showing many of the language features in short but useful program - (2012-06-09)
  [3758] Ruby - standard operators are overloaded. Perl - they are not - (2012-06-09)
  [4388] Global Regular Expression matching in Ruby (using scan) - (2015-01-08)
  [4505] Regular Expressions for the petrified - in Ruby - (2015-06-03)
  [4549] Clarrissa-Marybelle - too long to really fit? - (2015-10-23)

Q806 - Regular Expression Cookbook
  [1230] Commenting a Perl Regular Expression - (2007-06-12)
  [1840] Validating Credit Card Numbers - (2008-10-14)
  [2165] Making Regular Expressions easy to read and maintain - (2009-05-10)
  [2563] Efficient debugging of regular expressions - (2010-01-04)
  [2702] First and last match with Regular Expressions - (2010-04-02)
  [2727] Making a Lua program run more than 10 times faster - (2010-04-16)
  [2804] Regular Expression Myths - (2010-06-13)
  [3218] Matching a license plate or product code - Regular Expressions - (2011-03-28)
  [3788] Getting more than a yes / no answer from a regular expression pattern match - (2012-06-30)

P212 - Perl - More on Character Strings
  [453] Commenting Perl regular expressions - (2005-09-30)
  [583] Remember to process blank lines - (2006-01-31)
  [586] Perl Regular Expressions - finding the position and length of the match - (2006-02-02)
  [597] Storing a regular expression in a perl variable - (2006-02-09)
  [608] Don't expose your regular expressions - (2006-02-15)
  [737] Coloured text in a terminal from Perl - (2006-05-29)
  [928] C++ and Perl - why did they do it THAT way? - (2006-11-16)
  [1222] Perl, the substitute operator s - (2007-06-08)
  [1251] Substitute operator / modifiers in Perl - (2007-06-28)
  [1510] Handling Binary data (.gif file example) in Perl - (2008-01-17)
  [1727] Equality and looks like tests - Perl - (2008-07-29)
  [1735] Finding words and work boundaries (MySQL, Perl, PHP) - (2008-08-03)
  [1947] Perl substitute - the e modifier - (2008-12-16)
  [2230] Running a piece of code is like drinking a pint of beer - (2009-06-11)
  [2379] Making variables persistant, pretending a database is a variable and other Perl tricks - (2009-08-27)
  [2657] Want to do a big batch edit? Nothing beats Perl! - (2010-03-01)
  [2801] Binary data handling with unpack in Perl - (2010-06-10)
  [2834] Teaching examples in Perl - third and final part - (2010-06-27)
  [2874] Unpacking a Perl string into a list - (2010-07-16)
  [2877] Further more advanced Perl examples - (2010-07-19)
  [2993] Arrays v Lists - what is the difference, why use one or the other - (2010-10-10)
  [3059] Object Orientation in an hour and other Perl Lectures - (2010-11-18)
  [3100] Looking ahead and behind in Regular Expressions - double matching - (2010-12-23)
  [3322] How much has Perl (and other languages) changed? - (2011-06-10)
  [3332] DNA to Amino Acid - a sample Perl script - (2011-06-24)
  [3411] Single and double quotes strings in Perl - what is the difference? - (2011-08-30)
  [3546] The difference between dot (a.k.a. full stop, period) and comma in Perl - (2011-12-09)
  [3630] Serialsing and unserialising data for storage and transfer in Perl - (2012-02-28)
  [3650] Possessive Regular Expression Matching - Perl, Objective C and some other languages - (2012-03-12)
  [3707] Converting codons via Amino Acids to Proteins in Perl - (2012-04-25)
  [3927] First match or all matches? Perl Regular Expressions - (2012-11-19)
  [4452] Binary data handling - Python and Perl - (2015-03-09)


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This is a page archived from The Horse's Mouth at http://www.wellho.net/horse/ - the diary and writings of Graham Ellis. Every attempt was made to provide current information at the time the page was written, but things do move forward in our business - new software releases, price changes, new techniques. Please check back via our main site for current courses, prices, versions, etc - any mention of a price in "The Horse's Mouth" cannot be taken as an offer to supply at that price.

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