Re: Need Regular Expressions?

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From: alr (alr_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 02/14/05 

Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 10:53:02 -0800

Thanks for your input. I got things working but now I am working on a more
permanent solution. I need to save the removed text to a new field and run
this on some large quantities of data in a production environment.

Is there a better choice of tools or some suggestions for making the regex
reliable? Obviously rigorous and thorough testing of any solution is
required. If regex is the best choice, is VBA to VbScript to Regex an
acceptable way to get there? Are there other options? Is there some
documentation available? The lack of a manual for these tools has become a
major irritant in my life or a job security program.

Thanks again,

alr

"John Nurick" wrote:

> On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 09:39:02 -0800, alr <alr@discussions.microsoft.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Of course this was at my expense since I must maintain this code. Any clues
> >on how to keep it simple?
>
> If you don't let them change the rules you won't have to change the
> code.
>
> IME it's easier to maintain one regex than the tens or hundreds of lines
> of code that would otherwise be needed to implement the same rules. (And
> the nice people who design and build regex engines must feel the same
> way or they'd spend their time doing something else.)
>
> Pace Maury, it's not regexes that are error prone but the people who
> write them (me included). It's all too easy to develop a regex that
> seems to do the job, and then move on to something else without testing
> it thoroughly. Later on, with unexpected input, it may give you
> unexpected output - but that means it's wrong, not broken<g>.
>
> --
> John Nurick [Microsoft Access MVP]
>
> Please respond in the newgroup and not by email.
>