On Wednesday 22 September 2004 09:13 pm, David A. Black wrote:

> I agree.  It's sounding like this is being informally proposed as a
> new core method (rather than just discussed as something one might
> write ad hoc), and I haven't seen a case being made for it at all.

Well, you may be right. Most scenarios can be adjusted for *after the match*. 
The only *necessary* use case (since that's what you'r after) would come from 
something that could only be done before matching happens. Given just how 
dynamic Ruby is, that something of course will be hard to find. (BTW --Ruby's 
dynamic method arguemts *args is exactly how I resolved my potential use 
case.)

On the other hand, if this information is already "near the surface" in the 
Regexp engine. It certainly shouldn't be a big deal to add a method to access 
it. It's funny how people are more likely to find uses for things when they 
can actually use them. ;) Any way, it's no big deal. I was just wondering if 
anyone else thought they might be of use.

FYI --Concerning which type of captures to count, only groups that can 
actually capture are of any external use. So only they need counting really.

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