Do the 2 implementations (plugin and package on SM which I assume is
Vassili's) handle the same inputs? i.e. can they compile the same regex
expression?

If so, maybe we include the "pure" implementation with stubs to try the
plugin if available.

Russell

> -----Original Message-----
> From: squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org [mailto:squeak-dev-
> bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org] On Behalf Of Avi Bryant
> Sent: Monday, 21 June 2004 3:02 AM
> To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
> Subject: Re: Regular Expressions in Smalltalk?
> 
> 
> On Jun 20, 2004, at 8:23 AM, Ned Konz wrote:
> 
> > There are also some all-Smalltalk regex packages available; I haven't
> > tried
> > them or compared them against the plugin-based one (which is quite
> > fast and
> > complete, and comes with a number of tests).
> 
> I did some benchmarking a while ago of the port of Vassili's regex
> package against the plugin, and wrote this to the list:
> 
> "
> It did amazingly well - although it takes about 20x as long to compile
> a pattern, when actually matching the plugin only gave about a 3x speed
> boost.  Given that either way we're talking tens of thousands of
> matches per second for most input, I'm not sure a plugin is really
> necessary.
> "
> 
> One advantage of using an all-Smalltalk package is that your code is
> more portable; it would be a real hassle to get a PCRE plugin going on
> VW or Dolphin, but Vassili's matcher already runs on them.  This may
> not be a concern for everyone, but it is for me.
> 
> Avi
>