1Regex(3)              User Contributed Perl Documentation             Regex(3)
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NAME

6       YAPE::Regex - Yet Another Parser/Extractor for Regular Expressions
7

VERSION

9       This document refers to YAPE::Regex version 4.00.
10

SYNOPSIS

12         use YAPE::Regex;
13         use strict;
14
15         my $regex = qr/reg(ular\s+)?exp?(ression)?/i;
16         my $parser = YAPE::Regex->new($regex);
17
18         # here is the tokenizing part
19         while (my $chunk = $parser->next) {
20           # ...
21         }
22

"YAPE" MODULES

24       The "YAPE" hierarchy of modules is an attempt at a unified means of
25       parsing and extracting content.  It attempts to maintain a generic
26       interface, to promote simplicity and reusability.  The API is powerful,
27       yet simple.  The modules do tokenization (which can be intercepted) and
28       build trees, so that extraction of specific nodes is doable.
29

DESCRIPTION

31       This module is yet another (?) parser and tree-builder for Perl regular
32       expressions.  It builds a tree out of a regex, but at the moment, the
33       extent of the extraction tool for the tree is quite limited (see
34       "Extracting Sections").  However, the tree can be useful to extension
35       modules.
36

USAGE

38       In addition to the base class, "YAPE::Regex", there is the auxiliary
39       class "YAPE::Regex::Element" (common to all "YAPE" base classes) that
40       holds the individual nodes' classes.  There is documentation for the
41       node classes in that module's documentation.
42
43   Methods for "YAPE::Regex"
44       ·   "use YAPE::Regex;"
45
46       ·   "use YAPE::Regex qw( MyExt::Mod );"
47
48           If supplied no arguments, the module is loaded normally, and the
49           node classes are given the proper inheritence (from
50           "YAPE::Regex::Element").  If you supply a module (or list of
51           modules), "import" will automatically include them (if needed) and
52           set up their node classes with the proper inheritence -- that is,
53           it will append "YAPE::Regex" to @MyExt::Mod::ISA, and
54           "YAPE::Regex::xxx" to each node class's @ISA (where "xxx" is the
55           name of the specific node class).
56
57             package MyExt::Mod;
58             use YAPE::Regex 'MyExt::Mod';
59
60             # does the work of:
61             # @MyExt::Mod::ISA = 'YAPE::Regex'
62             # @MyExt::Mod::text::ISA = 'YAPE::Regex::text'
63             # ...
64
65       ·   "my $p = YAPE::Regex->new($REx);"
66
67           Creates a "YAPE::Regex" object, using the contents of $REx as a
68           regular expression.  The "new" method will attempt to convert $REx
69           to a compiled regex (using "qr//") if $REx isn't already one.  If
70           there is an error in the regex, this will fail, but the parser will
71           pretend it was ok.  It will then report the bad token when it gets
72           to it, in the course of parsing.
73
74       ·   "my $text = $p->chunk($len);"
75
76           Returns the next $len characters in the input string; $len defaults
77           to 30 characters.  This is useful for figuring out why a parsing
78           error occurs.
79
80       ·   "my $done = $p->done;"
81
82           Returns true if the parser is done with the input string, and false
83           otherwise.
84
85       ·   "my $errstr = $p->error;"
86
87           Returns the parser error message.
88
89       ·   "my $backref = $p->extract;"
90
91           Returns a code reference that returns the next back-reference in
92           the regex.  For more information on enhancements in upcoming
93           versions of this module, check "Extracting Sections".
94
95       ·   "my $node = $p->display(...);"
96
97           Returns a string representation of the entire content.  It calls
98           the "parse" method in case there is more data that has not yet been
99           parsed.  This calls the "fullstring" method on the root nodes.
100           Check the "YAPE::Regex::Element" docs on the arguments to
101           "fullstring".
102
103       ·   "my $node = $p->next;"
104
105           Returns the next token, or "undef" if there is no valid token.
106           There will be an error message (accessible with the "error" method)
107           if there was a problem in the parsing.
108
109       ·   "my $node = $p->parse;"
110
111           Calls "next" until all the data has been parsed.
112
113       ·   "my $node = $p->root;"
114
115           Returns the root node of the tree structure.
116
117       ·   "my $state = $p->state;"
118
119           Returns the current state of the parser.  It is one of the
120           following values: "alt", "anchor", "any", "backref", capture(N),
121           "Cchar", "class", "close", "code", "comment", "cond(TYPE)", "ctrl",
122           "cut", "done", "error", "flags", "group", "hex", "later",
123           "lookahead(neg|pos)", "lookbehind(neg|pos)", "macro", "named",
124           "oct", "slash", "text", and "utf8hex".
125
126           For capture(N), N will be the number the captured pattern
127           represents.
128
129           For "cond(TYPE)", TYPE will either be a number representing the
130           back-reference that the conditional depends on, or the string
131           "assert".
132
133           For "lookahead" and "lookbehind", one of "neg" and "pos" will be
134           there, depending on the type of assertion.
135
136       ·   "my $node = $p->top;"
137
138           Synonymous to "root".
139
140   Extracting Sections
141       While extraction of nodes is the goal of the "YAPE" modules, the author
142       is at a loss for words as to what needs to be extracted from a regex.
143       At the current time, all the "extract" method does is allow you access
144       to the regex's set of back-references:
145
146         my $extor = $parser->extract;
147         while (my $backref = $extor->()) {
148           # ...
149         }
150
151       "japhy" is very open to suggestions as to the approach to node
152       extraction (in how the API should look, in addition to what should be
153       proffered).  Preliminary ideas include extraction keywords like the
154       output of -Dr (or the "re" module's "debug" option).
155

EXTENSIONS

157       ·   "YAPE::Regex::Explain"
158
159           Presents an explanation of a regular expression, node by node.
160
161       ·   "YAPE::Regex::Reverse" (Not released)
162
163           Reverses the nodes of a regular expression.
164

TO DO

166       This is a listing of things to add to future versions of this module.
167
168   API
169       ·   Create a robust "extract" method
170
171           Open to suggestions.
172

BUGS

174       Following is a list of known or reported bugs.
175
176   Pending
177       ·   "use charnames ':full'"
178
179           To understand "\N{...}" properly, you must be using 5.6.0 or
180           higher.  However, the parser only knows how to resolve full names
181           (those made using "use charnames ':full'").  There might be an
182           option in the future to specify a class name.
183

SEE ALSO

185       The "YAPE::Regex::Element" documentation, for information on the node
186       classes.  Also, "Text::Balanced", Damian Conway's excellent module,
187       used for the matching of "(?{ ... })" and "(??{ ... })" blocks.
188

AUTHOR

190       The original author is Jeff "japhy" Pinyan (CPAN ID: PINYAN).
191
192       Gene Sullivan (gsullivan@cpan.org) is a co-maintainer.
193

LICENSE

195       This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
196       under the same terms as Perl itself.  See perlartistic.
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200perl v5.28.0                      2011-02-02                          Regex(3)