SPath

SPath is a library for running search queries against s-expressions, intended to match parts of them that the user needs. It is inspired by s-query, the syntax of LOOP, and loosely by XPath; not that it has the full expressive power of XPath, but some of the stylistic choices and ideas were taken from there. In particular, SPath finds all instances of a match in the same sort of way as XPath.

In other words, it's a DSL for pulling bits out of lists.

The goal of SPath, like s-query, was to provide a means to easily dig around in XML structures when represented as s-expressions, but unlike s-query I tried to do it in a fashion agnostic to the XML generation system in question. I also consider it of general utility, because I get sick of writing nests of list operations.

It was created by Robin Lee Powell, and is in the public domain.

Download ASDF package from http://digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/hobbies/software/spath.tar.gz

SPath requires Heresy.

Documentation, such as it is, can be found at the SPath readme. The SPath test suite should also effectively document everything SPath can do, albeit not in a very readable fashion.

Topics: pattern matching

This page is linked from: Vladimir Sedach

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