document regexp support for CLI arguments #217

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opened 2025-03-30 09:04:55 +00:00 by budRich · 0 comments

budRich commented

2025-03-30 09:04:55 +00:00

(Migrated from github.com)

@1ntronaut . yeah, through the history of the i3ass project i think some of these "matching" functions have went from non-regexp to regexpt to sometimes back again. And Yes i should document whenever a "string" argument is actually a regexp pattern. Also, it gets a bit weird to write PATTERNAS that are passed to f.i. AWK via bash, via some user defined script or i3config file or something (i3king rule file). Sometimes you need to escape special characters that are special in both bash, AWK, and regexp (f.i. the backslash that is used to escape characters), so it can also be a bit misleading saying that the arguments are regexps, since you may or may not have to do some escape shenanigans to make it work.

with that said, i could still do some investigation and see which commandline arguments are passed as regexp later, and make a short note about it, and that most characters except backslash can be escaped with brackets.

And maybe later, make a dedicated regexp wiki page, with examples how to actually write patterns in different scenarios.

Yeah. I will make a new issue for this.

Originally posted by @budRich in #215

> @1ntronaut . yeah, through the history of the i3ass project i think some of these "matching" functions have went from non-regexp to regexpt to sometimes back again. And Yes i should document whenever a "string" argument is actually a regexp pattern. Also, it gets a bit weird to write PATTERNAS that are passed to f.i. AWK via bash, via some user defined script or i3config file or something (i3king rule file). Sometimes you need to escape special characters that are special in both bash, AWK, and regexp (f.i. the backslash that is used to escape characters), so it can also be a bit misleading saying that the arguments are regexps, since you may or may not have to do some escape shenanigans to make it work. > > with that said, i could still do some investigation and see which commandline arguments are passed as regexp later, and make a short note about it, and that most characters except backslash can be escaped with brackets. > > And maybe later, make a dedicated regexp wiki page, with examples how to actually write patterns in different scenarios. > > Yeah. I will make a new issue for this. _Originally posted by @budRich in [#215](https://github.com/budlabs/i3ass/issues/215#issuecomment-2764461107)_