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Skype's Crazy Regex Easter Egg

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Re: Skype's Crazy Regex Easter Egg

#31

Post by nicpottier »

unwind wrote: post #25

I find it highly annoying that this, as far as I understand, really doesn't use regular expressions. The s/that/this/ syntax is not , of course, a regular expression. The regular expression is the thing that might go into the "that" part, an expression that can match against several different inputs. If all it supports is literals, it's not really worth calling it a regular expression, in my opinion. The article expr…

Oh, no argument there, though being "highly annoyed" may point to some grumpiness.

It is clearly not a regex engine, but it operates like a very very naive one, and uses the Perl syntax for them.

Ultimately Regex just seemed like the easiest / clearest way of describing the functionality. IE, if I say "Skype supports the Perl Regex syntax for simple word substitution" you probably instantly think of s/a/b/.

Maybe I should have used that as the headline, but it seemed a bit long.

Re: Skype's Crazy Regex Easter Egg

#32

Post by moe »

piaskal wrote: post #14
s0urceror wrote: post #3

I've always wanted to implement this in my IRC client, but been too lazy, it's nice to see it implemented in some form of chat client, although it's a bit lacking. Is the change visible for all participants?

You can edit sent messages on IRC?

No, but some clients such as linkinus will apply the regex on the client-side. Less capable clients just display it like any other message.

Re: Skype's Crazy Regex Easter Egg

#34

Post by jgrahamc »

unwind wrote: post #25

I find it highly annoying that this, as far as I understand, really doesn't use regular expressions. The s/that/this/ syntax is not , of course, a regular expression. The regular expression is the thing that might go into the "that" part, an expression that can match against several different inputs. If all it supports is literals, it's not really worth calling it a regular expression, in my opinion. The article expr…

I agree. Annoyed me also. There's nothing regexp about it at all. And then TFA says that this is 'Perl syntax'.

Sure, Perl uses that syntax but it was inherited from sed which got it from ed.

Re: Skype's Crazy Regex Easter Egg

#35

Post by zeugma »

nicpottier wrote: post #31
unwind wrote: post #25

I find it highly annoying that this, as far as I understand, really doesn't use regular expressions. The s/that/this/ syntax is not , of course, a regular expression. The regular expression is the thing that might go into the "that" part, an expression that can match against several different inputs. If all it supports is literals, it's not really worth calling it a regular expression, in my opinion. The article expr…

Oh, no argument there, though being "highly annoyed" may point to some grumpiness. It is clearly not a regex engine, but it operates like a very very naive one, and uses the Perl syntax for them. Ultimately Regex just seemed like the easiest / clearest way of describing the functionality. IE, if I say "Skype supports the Perl Regex syntax for simple word substitution" you probably instantly think of s/a/b/. Maybe I s…

Historicaly it is more a sed like syntax..

Re: Skype's Crazy Regex Easter Egg

#36

Post by brown9-2 »

You can type in "/help" in a chat to see more options:

    sys: Available commands:
     /me [text]
     /add [skypename+]
     /alertson [text]
     /alertsoff
     /whois [skypename]
     /help
    For more help please see http://www.skype.com/go/help.chathelp
Clickable link to the full list: http://www.skype.com/go/help.chathelp

Re: Skype's Crazy Regex Easter Egg

#37

Post by nicpottier »

jgrahamc wrote: post #34
unwind wrote: post #25

I find it highly annoying that this, as far as I understand, really doesn't use regular expressions. The s/that/this/ syntax is not , of course, a regular expression. The regular expression is the thing that might go into the "that" part, an expression that can match against several different inputs. If all it supports is literals, it's not really worth calling it a regular expression, in my opinion. The article expr…

I agree. Annoyed me also. There's nothing regexp about it at all. And then TFA says that this is 'Perl syntax'. Sure, Perl uses that syntax but it was inherited from sed which got it from ed.

Man, everybody is grumpy today, happy valentines? :)

I know Perl. It is the Perl syntax for regular expressions. I never said it was the first or only to use that syntax. Sheesh.

Re: Skype's Crazy Regex Easter Egg

#38

Post by jgrahamc »

nicpottier wrote: post #37
jgrahamc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Annoyed me also. There's nothing regexp about it at all. And then TFA says that this is 'Perl syntax'. Sure, Perl uses that syntax but it was inherited from sed which got it from ed.

Man, everybody is grumpy today, happy valentines? :) I know Perl. It is the Perl syntax for regular expressions. I never said it was the first or only to use that syntax. Sheesh.

OK. I'll cheer up. Here's my Valentine's Day appropriate story.

http://blog.jgc.org/2011/02/hacking-toshiba-t4800ct-love-sto...

Re: Skype's Crazy Regex Easter Egg

#40

Post by djacobs »

djacobs wrote: post #28
unwind wrote: post #25

I find it highly annoying that this, as far as I understand, really doesn't use regular expressions. The s/that/this/ syntax is not , of course, a regular expression. The regular expression is the thing that might go into the "that" part, an expression that can match against several different inputs. If all it supports is literals, it's not really worth calling it a regular expression, in my opinion. The article expr…

I agree with you. This is simple substitution. (If we're going to call this a regex mechanism, so is Find/Replace in Word.)

I don't mind downvotes, but what are they for? (I upvoted the parent post out of the negatives and now I'm there... I guess that's karma huh.)
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