Regular Expressions Book

More than that, it’s not like you just want to find every reference to the name “Meg” on your computer and change it to “Poop” … you can use regular expressions to transform Huge Text File (A) into just the  little sub-sections of important stuff … or you can convert (A) from one textual format to another, like from HTML to Whiskey, or whatever the hell new-fangled nonsense is going on out there in web junky land.

There are plenty of programs out there that make use of regular expressions and you don’t even know about it.  I first started playing around with them way back in 1995 or so, not long after Rich Siegel started selling BBEdit for Macintosh, and I’ve been using them since.  Here’s an example … say you have a text file that looks like this:
Jimmy Jack Johnson sells 43 seashells to Yo Momma. She paid about three-fiddy.
You can do a regular expression find/replace on that text, which would look something like this:
's/^(J.*)\ J.*\ (J.*)\ (s)...s\ ([0-9]+).*\r/\1\ sucks\ \4\ \2\3\.\r/g'
Which would now make that first text look something like this:
Jimmy sucks 43 Johnsons.

This sort of thing would be great for pranking your frienemies, but I have yet to hear of such a thing catching on.  Which brings us to my current dilemma.  I’ve come to rely on regular expressions so much that I believe they can do anything.  Unfortunately, I think I’m demanding too much, or at least my computer is unwilling to give me everything it’s got in order to accomplish this task.  I have a  text file, freshly spit out from Excel, that has 43 columns of textual data over 160 some-odd rows … not that big of a file, it’s only got about 43,000 characters.  It’s tab-delimited, meaning that in the text file, there’s a unprinted tab character (\t) between each section of the data, to separate out each of the cells.  What I wanted to do was churn this tabbed text file into an XML .plist, or Property List file.  I’m sure there’s a more elegant way of doing this (without having to do it by hand, obviously), but I chose to create a regular expression … here’s what the “Search For” string looks like:

^(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\t(.*)\r

And here’s what the “Replace With” string looked like:

legislatorID\r\1\rlegtype_name\r\2\rlegtype\r\3\rlastname\r\4\rfirstname\r\5\rmiddlename\r\6\rnickname\r\7\rsuffix\r\8\rparty_name\r\9\rparty_id\r\10\rdistrict\r\11\rtenure\r\12\rpartisan_index\r\13\rphoto_name\r\14\rbio_url\r\15\rnotes\r\16\rgallery_desk\r\17\rcap_office\r\18\rstaff\r\19\rcap_phone\r\20\rcap_fax\r\21\rcap_phone2_name\r\22\rcap_phone2\r\23\rdist1_street\r\24\rdist1_city\r\25\rdist1_zip\r\26\rdist1_phone\r\27\rdist1_fax\r\28\rdist2_street\r\29\rdist2_city\r\30\rdist2_zip\r\31\rdist2_phone\r\32\rdist2_fax\r\33\rdist3_street\r\34\rdist3_city\r\35\rdist3_zip\r\36\rdist3_phone1\r\37\rdist3_fax\r\38\rdist4_street\r\39\rdist4_city\r\40\rdist4_zip\r\41\rdist4_phone1\r\42\rdist4_fax\r\43\r\r

Needless to say, it did not go over well.  BBEdit died after ten minutes of churning.  Perl sucked up 2 Gigs of RAM before I had to kill it.  Sure I could process the file little bits at a time, but wouldn’t that be taking the fun out of regular expressions?

EDIT / Update: 

Yeah, about all that. With a tiny bit of touching up, a demo version of TextMate processed the whole file in about 6 seconds. Sounds like someone’s going to actually have to pay for a software registration when the demo expires. Nothing like knocking my socks off and shaming a few industry leaders to earn your keep. Nice job there buddy.

1. It all started going downhill last year when I noticed that it literally spewed out any gas over 3/4 full in the fuel tank.  Since this job didn’t qualify as a DIY, I took it to the dealership.  $2,600 later and the tank fills just fine.  Luckily, later that year Audi decided to fix this defect in the whole line of cars, and thus refunded me that expense.
2. Then I got this check engine light (CEL) … the computer/scanner tells me that the engine is running too lean, meaning it’s got too much oxygen coming in to the combustion chamber.  After a few weeks of hunting down cracked and broken vacuum hoses throughout the engine bay, the code now stays off and the engine runs great.
3. A few months later, I notice that during a heavy rain the rack that holds the battery, along with the brake boosters, master cylinder, and ECM module filled completely with rain water.  Audi didn’t think to remove a plastic cap that drains this out … Sadly, by the time I fixed it, the brake fluid reservoir and brake boosters got water in them, then rusted.  So I flush it as best I can, but now my brake booster squeaks like nails on a chalkboard every time I pump them.
4. In the course of flushing my brake fluid, I figured I might as well replace the brake disc rotors and pads.  This is about a month ago.  While midst replacement, I notice that a CV joint boot that holds in axel grease and protects the joint had recently obliterated itself.  The clue to this issue was the lack of axel grease on the front drive axel, yet everywhere else around it, such as the wheel well, brake rotors, brake calipers, suspension linkage, yeah … all that crap had lots of axel grease when there shouldn’t be any.  Funny how that happens.  I replaced the front drive axel (which comes with the CV boots) and all was well…
5. Then I got another CEL … this one told me that I have a stuck valve in my torque converter.  I had seen this particular code come up once before about a year ago, but it went away.  Looking online, folks said this generally comes on when the Automatic Transmission Fluid (ATF) is too low.  Odd, given that my friend/neighbor and I had changed the ATF and transmission filter about a year ago.  Interesting.  When I approach the Audi dealer about doing another ATF change, thinking I must have done it wrong, the Audi dealer refuses, saying the fluid is good for the life of the car … I call horseshit. This leads me to my latest …
6. I take the car, which now is showing some symptoms of transmission issues, to a european transmission rebuilder, hoping that a proper fluid change will fix my problems.  Sadly, after several days on the lift, they inform me that the low fluid was due to a leak.  They fixed the leak, but the damage was already done.  Clutch plates had burned.  The torque converter is in serious trouble.  My trusty old ZF 5HP19FLA transmission isn’t so trusty anymore. The estimated fix for this one?  Between $2,800 and $3,400 US dollars.  Holy shit.
7. I’m thinking that I should just drive it until the transmission collapses in a whimper or calamitous implosion.  But that might happen in the next couple of months.  I’m not really set up to spend $3,400 on a transmission rebuild, but then again I’m not set up to buy another car when this one completely fails, either.
8. Oh yeah, I almost forgot.  When you drive the car above 60 mph, the whole thing shakes like your granny’s false teeth in a blizzard.  Looks like some control arm bushings need a little love, too.
9. I love my car.

Jesus riding a dinosaur

So it’s been said that the 81st regular session of the Texas House of Representatives would be a dull one.  The Speaker of the House is not Tom Craddick, much to everyone’s surprise, so no more Texas State Troopers storming the chamber to prevent a violent mutiny.  The public already knows about all the ghost voting, or as I like to call it “Surprise, Representative Alonzo, you’re now a Republican”, so there’s no more excitement there.  But little did we know that Representative Charlie Geren from Texas’ 99th district had a little nugget (nougat?) of legislative gold in store for us.  

HCR 16 irons out a troubling question about those Bible-troubling dinosaur bones in Glen Rose, Texas. Word on the wire is that we’ve had our state dinosaur wrong all these years.  New scientific evidence shows that what we thought to be a Pleurocoelus (ploor-oh-seel-us), meaning “hollow-sided”, is in reality a Paluxysaurus Jonesi (sounds just like it reads), meaning “Paluxy Lizard”.  This new lizard is said to have lived 112 million years ago (according to heathen organization Wikipedia), but we all know it can’t be a day (or seven) older than 6,000 years old.  Documentary evidence of its age is provided on the left for your evaluation.

So thankfully we have the Texas State House to clear up these concerns that I know keep you awake at night.  Certainly a matter as important as this is best addressed well before we knock out other minor details such as public education financing, prison overcrowding, oh and that pesky Texas economy that seems to have tanked what with all the people jumping out of high-rise windows downtown.

Thank you Representative Geren, for setting the record straight, and for proving that the state legislature can actually get things done in only 140 calendar days every other year (provided the spring weather doesn’t force the legislators out to the old fishing hole with their poles in their hand).

Larry Flynt (of Hustler Fame) is tired of seeing all this good money go to bad people, what with all these slick auto manufacturers rolling in the hay with our hard earned virgin taxes.  So, dear old Larry is looking for a little government assistance for something a little more near and dear to our hearts, or at least our loins… He’s asking for a measly $5 billion to help out the US porn industry.  Now some of you may shrug this off as excessive or just silly, but here’s some figures to ponder…

 

 

 

 

 

All things considered, I think it’s a bargain.  Hey, I’m so eager to help I think I’ll donate $9.99 right this minute.

So Adam Reposa, heretofore known as “Bulletproof”, is criminal defense attorney in Austin. It just so happens he attended UT Law with Lorin. It just so happens Bulletproof has managed to get into a little stink with a Travis County Court judge when he made an obscene jester at the opposing prosecuting attorney. This “simulated masturbatory gesture” landed him a Contempt of Court charge as well as 90 days in jail.

Granted, if I ever find myself in a Travis County jailhouse after a heavy night of binge drinking and a few smashed up cars in my rearview mirror, I would probably give Bulletproof a ring.  It sounds like the prosecutor really pissed him off with some legal objection, so I’m sure it was a deserved response.  But still, I’m left wondering WTF?

 Here’s the original report from K-Eye News.  BP has since returned before the judge and “apologized” (with his middle finger, assuredly), but the judge followed through with a sentence of 90 days in jail.  Here are Bulletproof’s comments following the sentencing. My favorite quote:

“I’m not very good at looking contrite.  All I do is wake up in the morning and fight the government.”

The backlash is even more amusing, given his sudden prominence in a number of blogs, (including this one?) Please click on through at some awesome YouTube footage of his commercials.  What a guy.