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Re: Experiences with match() subexpressions?

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On 10.04.2025 16:04, Kenny McCormack wrote:
> In article <vt8bit$2uiq5$1@dont-email.me>,
> Janis Papanagnou  <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> wrote:
> ...
>>> I have to admit that I (still) don't really understand how this match third
>>> arg stuff works. 
> ...
>>> I.e., I can never predict what will happen, so I always
>>> just dump out the array and try to reverse-engineer it each time I need to
>>> use it.
> ...
>> Above output stuff appears because in 'arr' there's additional elements
>> about the pattern positions stored.
> 
> Just to clarify, I wasn't looking for a tutorial (man page regurgitation).
> I understand the man page description of match's 3rd arg as well as anyone;

(I didn't mean to offend you. Sorry, if it appeared so. - I just
read you writing "I don't really understand how this [...] works",
and that "it is unpredictable", so I thought some descriptive words
may be useful.)

> I just find it that it doesn't do as much in practice as (I think) it
> should - and that it is unpredictable (by me, anyway) what it will do (you
> have to dump out the array and trial-and-error it to get it to do what you
> want). 

It is pretty understandable to me, and not the least unpredictable.
(That's why I thought it would be okay to write what I had written
to explain it.) I don't understand what you find to be unpredictable.
But never mind.

> It promises more than it delivers. 

Yes, probably. Although, according to what's literally documented,
it doesn't promise too much, IMO. The feature can be very useful,
but not for the case I was looking for. - Actually, it could have
provided the functionality I was seeking, but since GNU Awk relies
on the GNU regexp functions as they are implemented I cannot expect
that any provided features gets extended by Awk. - If GNU Awk would
have an own RE implementation then we could think about using, e.g.,
another array dimension to store the (now only temporary existing,
and generally unavailable) subexpressions.

> [...]
> 
> None of which is criticism of the feature; as you say below, it basically
> does as much as the underlying regexp library allows it to do.
> 
> ...
>> I think I'll do the parsing the straightforward two-step way as I did
>> before the GNU Awk specific functions were available; it's probably
>> also the clearest way to program that functionality.
> 
> Probably so.  BTW, it is not really "GNU Awk specific"; lots of languages
> have this general capability.

Oh, I was just trying to say that for my programming the standard Awk
functions (as opposed to GNU Awk _specific_ functions) are fine here.
(That should not disdain all the useful GNU Awk extensions existing.)

Janis

> [...]

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Experiences with match() subexpressions? Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-10 09:06 +0200
  Re: Experiences with match() subexpressions? Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-10 09:09 +0200
    Re: Experiences with match() subexpressions? gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2025-04-10 11:08 +0000
      Re: Experiences with match() subexpressions? Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-10 13:55 +0200
        Re: Experiences with match() subexpressions? gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2025-04-10 14:04 +0000
          Re: Experiences with match() subexpressions? Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-10 23:39 +0200
            Re: Experiences with match() subexpressions? arnold@freefriends.org (Aharon Robbins) - 2025-04-11 06:33 +0000
              Re: Experiences with match() subexpressions? Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-11 09:10 +0200
                Re: Experiences with match() subexpressions? Kaz Kylheku <643-408-1753@kylheku.com> - 2025-04-11 08:22 +0000
                Re: Experiences with match() subexpressions? Manuel Collado <mcollado2011@gmail.com> - 2025-04-18 12:03 +0200
                Re: Experiences with match() subexpressions? gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2025-04-18 12:01 +0000
                Re: Experiences with match() subexpressions? Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-18 14:24 +0200
              Re: Experiences with match() subexpressions? Kaz Kylheku <643-408-1753@kylheku.com> - 2025-04-11 07:40 +0000
              The new matcher (Was: Experiences with match() subexpressions?) gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2025-04-11 08:57 +0000
                Re: The new matcher (Was: Experiences with match() subexpressions?) Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-11 15:50 +0200
              Re: Experiences with match() subexpressions? Kaz Kylheku <643-408-1753@kylheku.com> - 2025-04-11 17:54 +0000
    Re: Experiences with match() subexpressions? Ed Morton <mortonspam@gmail.com> - 2025-04-10 20:07 -0500
      Re: Experiences with match() subexpressions? Ed Morton <mortonspam@gmail.com> - 2025-04-13 12:52 -0500
        Nitpicking the code (Was: Experiences with match() subexpressions?) gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2025-04-14 18:20 +0000
          Re: Nitpicking the code (Was: Experiences with match() subexpressions?) Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-14 20:53 +0200
            Re: Nitpicking the code (Was: Experiences with match() subexpressions?) Ed Morton <mortonspam@gmail.com> - 2025-04-14 18:55 -0500
              Re: Nitpicking the code (Was: Experiences with match() subexpressions?) Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-04-15 05:35 +0200

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