- From: Malcolm Rowe <malcolm-what@farside.org.uk>
- Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 11:28:50 +0100
Wrigley, Ave writes: > 1. What is the motivation behind the implicit ^ and $ (start and end of > string metacharacters)? Just on this point, see, for example, http://listserver.dreamhost.com/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2004-June/000320 .html In summary: * Whole-pattern matches appears to be significantly more common. * Forms-design applications that support patterns usually make the pattern a whole-pattern rather than substring match. * In the current design, it's immediately obvious if you get it wrong (i.e., you wanted a substring match, and got a whole-pattern match). Without the implicit start and end characters, you won't necessarily notice that what you expected to be a whole-pattern match is actually acting as a substring match. Regards, Malcolm
Received on Thursday, 22 July 2004 03:28:50 UTC