Skip to main content

Can Regular Expressions Be Safely Reused Across Languages?

That is, can I reuse a regular expression crafted in JavaScript verbatim in Python? In doing so, will I get the same results and performance? Enter your languages of interest in place of JavaScript and Python, the question remains the same. 
It is a not well kept secret that programmers are huge fans of copying and pasting code snippets, regular expressions included, that are freely available across the web. But unlike copying and pasting code within the boundaries of the same programming language, does copying a regular expression that was crafted in one language into another work as assumed, or would it introduce errors, both semantically and in performance?
"Why Aren’t Regular Expressions a Lingua Franca? An Empirical Study on the Re-use and Portability of Regular Expressions" is a paper that attempts to shed light on the question: are regular expressions truly portable?

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Open Source Is Not Just About Software

  It's about infrastructure as well, something that although not attracting the limelight, is as important as the open source software it hosts. Today the stewards of the largest open source registries in the world have issued an open letter demanding urgent reform in how open source infrastructure is funded, maintained, and operated.  https://www.i-programmer.info/news/136-open-source/18334-open-source-is-not-just-about-software.html
Post a Comment
Read more

Europe Gets Its Own LLM

  EuroLLM is a fully open-sourced large language model made in Europe and built to support all twenty-four official EU languages. While several European states have separately produced their own LLMs, such as Greece's "Meltemi" or the recent offering from Switzerland "Apertus", there was no solution that catered for the languages of all 24 states belonging to the EU block. The time has come for this status to change with the appearance of EuroLLM, a foundational model that supports them all. https://www.i-programmer.info/news/105-artificial-intelligence/18448-europe-gets-its-own-llm.html
Post a Comment
Read more

With MCP Docs Servers You'll Never Run Out Of Fresh Documentation

  MCP has changed the way you interact with your tools overnight. Now it targets your documentation. Wouldn't be great to have the latest and updated code samples and documentation of your favorite framework and libraries ready at your fingertips? Plus, be able to talk to it in natural language? https://www.i-programmer.info/news/90-tools/18248-with-mcp-docs-servers-youll-never-run-out-of-fresh-documentation-.html
Post a Comment
Read more