On Oct 19, 2004, at 1:53 PM, Jamis Buck wrote:

> Is there a way to test regexen for equality based on the strings they 
> would match?

Wow.  I bet that's a pretty tall order.  Pulling from the current Ruby 
Quiz, here are several ways to write a regex to match 1..12:

1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12

\d|1[012]

1?[12]|[03-9]

You're certainly not going to be able to compare like patterns that 
way.  Maybe some internal representation, but I would but super 
impressed to see that.

Not at all saying I don't like the idea, just that it's a tall order.

James Edward Gray II