Formatted Search with Substitution Patterns

In MultipleSearchesInSameTopic, AmitTendulkar and VinodKulkarni suggest to define variables $1, $2, $3 etc instead of a single $pattern. These variables correspond to Perl's usual mechanisms to select specific segments of a pattern match.

I really like the idea of supporting a substitution pattern. That is a very flexible way to grab more then one thing out of a text and format the result. What is a good syntax? $substitute(pattern/replace) or what else?

Example: Get the Name and Email from a home page and format it as a table row:
$substitute(.*?\* Name\:([^\n\r]*).*?\* Email\:([^\n\r]*).*/|$1|$2|)

The question is to find a good syntax for $substitute(pattern/replace) which is intuitive, flexible and is easy to parse. Questionable syntax indicated in red. What if I want to use a slash in the pattern; or a closing parenthesis in the "replace" part? We could support multiple delimiters like in Perl.

-- PeterThoeny - 27 Sep 2003

Ideas for syntax:

1. $substitute(pattern/replace)
   • can't use slash in pattern or replace
   • no reliable way to parse for closing parenthesis
2. $substitute({pattern}{replace})
   • safe to parse
   • syntax known to Perl programmers
3. $substitute(<pattern><replace>)
   • safe to parse
   • syntax known to Perl programmers

or:

1. $substitute(/pattern/replace/) (where "/" can be any character)
   • safe to parse
   • syntax known to Perl programmers

How hard would it be to use the entire perl substitution syntax? Can't you just stick whatever is in the brackets after an "s"?

-- SamHasler - 24 Feb 2004

can i get out my featuritus flag, and indicate that this sounds like techy plugin land? (yes its easy to do and feels sexy, but should it really be done?)

-- SvenDowideit - 24 Feb 2004