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    <p>I agree that the line-noise syntax of regexps is a big problem, and frankly I don't understand why so many people accept or defend it, it's not human-readable. </p> <p>Something you don't mention in your post, but which is almost as bad, is that nearly every language, editor, or tool has its own variation on regexp syntax. Some of them support POSIX syntax as it was defined so many years ago, some support Perl syntax as it is today. But many have their own independent ways of expressing things, or which characters are "special" (special characters is another topic) and which are not. What is escaped and what isn't. Etc. Not only is it difficult to read a regexp written for one language or tool, but even if you totally memorize the syntax rules for your favorite variation, they can trip you up in a different language, where {2,3} no longer means what you expect. It's truly a mess.</p> <p>Furthermore, I think there are many non-programmers who (if they knew it existed) would appreciate having a pattern-matching language they could use in everyday tools like Google or Microsoft Word. But there would need to be an easier syntax for it.</p> <p>So, to answer your question, I have often thought of making some kind of cross-platform, cross-language, cross-everything library that would allow you to "translate" from any regexp syntax (be it Perl, or POSIX, or Emacs, etc) into any other regexp syntax. So that you wouldn't have to worry if Python regexps could do negative look-behind, or if character-class brackets should be escaped in an Emacs regexp. You could just memorize one syntax, then make a function call to get out the equivalent syntax for whatever you happened to be using. </p> <p>From there, it could be extended with a new pattern-matching language, that would be a bit more verbose or at least more mnemonic. Something for people who don't want to spend half-an-hour studying a regexp to figure out what it does. (And people who think regexps are fine as they are have obviously never had to maintain anything they didn't write themselves, or they would understand the need for other people to be able to parse what they've written.)</p> <p>Will I ever attempt such a beast? I don't know, it's been on my to-do list for a long time, and there are a lot of easier and more entertaining projects on there as well. But if you are contemplating something similar, let me know.</p>
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    1. USMichael Warner
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