The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

JBert · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

At least they didn't use a hash symbol to separate all those branches...

Zacrath · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

This hurts my soul.

VinDuv · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

[:#.$",'#-/|]? [B|b|C|c|G|g|H|h|J|j|K|k|L|l|M|m|S|s|U|u|Y|y]? How does this syntax work, exactly? The regex parser implementation must be pretty interesting...

Zacrath · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

[B|b|C|c|G|g|H|h|J|j|K|k|L|l|M|m|S|s|U|u|Y|y]

I can see case-insensitivity doesn't exist here.

RaceProUK · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

My reaction after seeing that regex: [image]

TheCPUWizard · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

When it comes to "write only languages", APL (with the original greek character set) is still king!!!!

Kuro · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

Tried putting it into Debuggex

Debuggex

Did not work. Did I do something wrong?

Filed Under: I need a graphical representation of that regex, please

Zacrath · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

Kuro:
Tried putting it into Debuggex
Debuggex

Did not work. Did I do something wrong?

Filed Under: I need a graphical representation of that regex, please

the system doesn’t use widely implemented “Perl-compatible regular expressions” syntax, but instead, uses its own, slightly tweaked version.

Online tools ain't gonna work.

RaceProUK · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

the system doesn’t use widely implemented “Perl-compatible regular expressions” syntax, but instead, uses its own, slightly tweaked version.

:wtf::question: Why are they using their own syntax?

Kuro · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

I suppose it's to anonymize the WTF...

Filed Under: Or because this tweaked regex is so beautiful

Zacrath · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

RaceProUK:
>the system doesn’t use widely implemented “Perl-compatible regular expressions” syntax, but instead, **uses its own, slightly tweaked version.**
:wtf::question: Why are they using their own syntax?

Because they're professionals. They're too good for regular regex. They need… Enterprise regex.

Filed under: Regular regular expressions

Onyx · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

At least it's not Asterisk's "Kinda-regex thing that's grossly underpowered. PCRE? Oh, we have that as well! No, you can't use it here where you really need it, what are you, crazy?"

Filed under: Bonus: every phone manufacturer has their own incompatible implementation. Documented in Engrish with half on an example provided

RFoxmich · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

'Perl is jokingly referred to as a “write-only language”'

It's no joke.

Zacrath · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

RFoxmich:
'Perl is jokingly referred to as a “write-only language”'
It's no joke.

Actually, there was one time when I successfully read Perl code. True story.

Filed under Myth Busted

RaceProUK · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

Zacrath:
Actually, there was one time when I successfully read Perl code

The 'Hello World' example doesn't count :stuck_out_tongue:

Yazeran · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

Ok. I have to confess, that a lot of our code is written in Perl, and we do use RE's (mainly for sanitising user input in conjunction with taint mode), and yes Perl code can be written so it is maintainable for others than the original coder, but where is the fun in that... :-)

But even I would say that that piece of RE is an abomination in the extreme. It is almost as bad as the email address walidation one ( http://www.ex-parrot.com/pdw/Mail-RFC822-Address.html )

mott555 · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

I like regular expressions. They're handy and useful, really not that hard to understand, and the hate against them is poorly-misdirected cargo cultism. But after seeing today's article, last night's partially-digested dinner is soaking into my keyboard and the submitter owes me a new one.

powerlord · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

So, was the keyboard still able to be used after it got sat on or did they need to get a new one?

PJH · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

Kuro:
Filed Under: I need a graphical representation of that regex, please

https://www.debuggex.com/r/lZb4WgK4HfkOHoWQ ?

boomzilla · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

Does the regex take more or less than 2 minutes to compile?

hungrier · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

I dunno but it is definitely bigger than a bread box.

Salamander · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

There were a lot of repetitions in a way that makes me think it may have been automatically generated. In any case, I've filtered out the common parts into pseudocode. All constants are encased in tildes, eg ~CONST~

Preserving newlines in the source and the order of operations with ||, we get http://pastebin.com/iMd3xUVA Ignoring newlines and reordering the || operations, we get http://pastebin.com/iMd3xUVA

PAT_1 =24[A|a|B|b|C|c|F|f|K|k|M|m|T|t][0-9] PAT_2 =35[A|a|B|R|r|S|s|T|t|U|u][0-9] PAT_3 =04[C|c|D|d|F|f|V|v][0-9] PAT_4 =02[A|a|B|b|C|c|D|d|E|e|F|f][0-9] PAT_5 =21[A|a|C|c|D|d][0-9] PAT_6 =32[A|a|F|f|H|h|X|x|Y|y|Z|z][0-9] PAT_7 =40[A|a|C|c|D|d|S|s][0-9] PAT_8 =23[A|a|B|b|C|c|D|d|L|l|M|m][0-9] PAT_9 =15[D|d|E|e|R|r|T|t][0-9] PAT_10=[:#.$",'#-/|] PAT_11=[:#.$",'#-/|l\\] PAT_12=06[B|b|C|c|G|g|H|h|J|j|K|k|L|l|M|m|S|s|U|u|Y|y][0-9] PAT_13=01[A|a|C|c|D|d|E|e|R|r][0-9] PAT_14=[C|c][P|p][K,<|k,<][0-9] PAT_15=05[M|m|A|a][0-9] PAT_16=17[A|a|E|e|L|l|M|m|P|p|S|s|U|u|W|w][0-9] PAT_17=07[U|u][0-9] PAT_18=08[A|a][0-9] PAT_19=35[A|a|B|b|R|r|S|s|T|t|U|u][0-9] PAT_20=09[A|a|B|b|C|c|D|d|F|f][0-9] PAT_21=34[A|a][0-9] PAT_22=10[M|m|F|f][0-9] PAT_23=13[A|a][0-9] PAT_24=14[A|a][0-9] PAT_25=39[C|c|P|p][0-9] PAT_26=25[A|a][0-9] PAT_27=18[A|a][0-9] PAT_28=46[A|a|B|b][0-9]
FUNC_1(ARG_1)= ~( ~ARG_1~{7} ) ~||(~PAT_10~~ARG_1~{7} ) ~||( ~ARG_1~{7}~PAT_11~) ~||([:#-/|]~ARG_1~{7}~PAT_11~)

FUNC_2(ARG_1)= ~( ~ARG_1~{7} ) ~||(~PAT_10~~ARG_1~{7} ) ~||( ~ARG_1~{7}~PAT_11~) ~||(~PAT_10~~ARG_1~{7}~PAT_11~)

FUNC_3(ARG_1)= ~( ~ARG_1~{9} ) ~||(~PAT_10~~ARG_1~{9} ) ~||(~ARG_1~{9}~PAT_11~) ~||(~PAT_10~~ARG_1~{9}~PAT_11~)

FUNC_4(ARG_1)= ~( ~ARG_1~{9} ) ~|| (~PAT_10~~ARG_1~{9} ) ~||( ~ARG_1~{9}~PAT_11~) ~||(~PAT_10~~ARG_1~{9}~PAT_11~)

FUNC_7(ARG_1)= ~( ~ARG_1~{11} ) ~||(~PAT_10~~ARG_1~{11} ) ~||( ~ARG_1~{11}[:.$",'#-/|l\]) ~||([:.$",'#-/|]~ARG_1~{11}[:.$",'#-/|l\])

FUNC_8(ARG_1)= ~FUNC_2(~ARG_1~) ~||FUNC_3(~ARG_1~)

RESULTING "REGEXP"

([:-.,;/\(]{0,2}(FUNC_8(~PAT_1~) ||FUNC_2(~PAT_2~) ||FUNC_8(~PAT_3~) ||FUNC_3(~PAT_4~) ||FUNC_1(~PAT_4~) ||FUNC_8(~PAT_5~) ||FUNC_8(~PAT_6~) ||FUNC_8(~PAT_7~) ||FUNC_8(~PAT_8~) ||FUNC_8(~PAT_9~) ||FUNC_8(~PAT_12~) ||FUNC_1(~PAT_13~) ||FUNC_3(~PAT_13~) ||FUNC_7(~PAT_14~) ||FUNC_8(~PAT_15~) ||FUNC_8(~PAT_16~) ||FUNC_8(~PAT_17~) ||FUNC_8(~PAT_18~) ||FUNC_3(~PAT_19~) ||FUNC_4(~PAT_20~) ||FUNC_2(~PAT_20~) ||FUNC_8(~PAT_21~) ||FUNC_8(~PAT_22~) ||FUNC_8(~PAT_23~) ||FUNC_8(~PAT_24~) ||FUNC_8(~PAT_25~) ||FUNC_8(~PAT_26~) ||FUNC_8(~PAT_27~) ||FUNC_8(~PAT_28~) )[-.,;:Il|/\]{0,2} )

... Nope, Still makes no sense.

Filed under: Using quotes because the code block's preview is threatening to mangle the output with all kinds of discoshit

chreng · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

You might want to invest in a keyboard like this. It can be rinsed under water after such incidents:

[image]

operagost · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

If that's not Codethulu, I don't know what is.

flabdablet · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

chreng:
It can be rinsed under water

Most keyboards survive a trip through the dishwasher quite well, as long as you don't use detergent and give them a week to dry out again before plugging them back in.

operagost · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

Doctor, I feel sharp pain every morning when I put on my slippers. Any idea what it might be?

flabdablet · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

VinDuv:
[:#.$",'#-/|]? [B|b|C|c|G|g|H|h|J|j|K|k|L|l|M|m|S|s|U|u|Y|y]? How does this syntax work, exactly?

Well, either they're using a nonstandard regex parser that overloads the [ ] operator to mean both "character class match" and "non-capturing group to limit the scope of the | operator", or whoever wrote that regex doesn't really understand how character classes work.

It would be interesting to run the big ugly regex against input containing a lot of | characters to see if it matches a whole bunch of things it shouldn't. And by "interesting" I mean "something it would be amusing to hear about over morning coffee" as opposed to "something I am even vaguely motivated to do myself".

dkf · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

flabdablet:
whoever wrote that regex doesn't really understand how character classes work.

My bet is on this one. :ive_seen_some_things.dll:

herby · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

Yes, regular expressions are nice, but if they take up more than a line (for various definitions of line) they become VERY write only. If you want the next guy (or yourself in 6 months) to understand it, keep it SHORT!

Obviously this wasn't a consideration for the expression in the article. The author should be kicked to the curb!

mott555 · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

That doesn't look clicky enough.

oesor · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

There's nothing really wrong with that one, past being complex. It's pretty legible:

sub make_rfc822re {
#   Basic lexical tokens are specials, domain_literal, quoted_string, atom, and
#   comment.  We must allow for lwsp (or comments) after each of these.
#   This regexp will only work on addresses which have had comments stripped 
#   and replaced with lwsp.

    my $specials = '()<>@,;:\\\\".\\[\\]';
    my $controls = '\\000-\\031';

    my $dtext = "[^\\[\\]\\r\\\\]";
    my $domain_literal = "\\[(?:$dtext|\\\\.)*\\]$lwsp*";

    my $quoted_string = "\"(?:[^\\\"\\r\\\\]|\\\\.|$lwsp)*\"$lwsp*";

#   Use zero-width assertion to spot the limit of an atom.  A simple 
#   $lwsp* causes the regexp engine to hang occasionally.
    my $atom = "[^$specials $controls]+(?:$lwsp+|\\Z|(?=[\\[\"$specials]))";
    my $word = "(?:$atom|$quoted_string)";
    my $localpart = "$word(?:\\.$lwsp*$word)*";

    my $sub_domain = "(?:$atom|$domain_literal)";
    my $domain = "$sub_domain(?:\\.$lwsp*$sub_domain)*";

    my $addr_spec = "$localpart\@$lwsp*$domain";

    my $phrase = "$word*";
    my $route = "(?:\@$domain(?:,\@$lwsp*$domain)*:$lwsp*)";
    my $route_addr = "\\<$lwsp*$route?$addr_spec\\>$lwsp*";
    my $mailbox = "(?:$addr_spec|$phrase$route_addr)";

    my $group = "$phrase:$lwsp*(?:$mailbox(?:,\\s*$mailbox)*)?;\\s*";
    my $address = "(?:$mailbox|$group)";

    return "$lwsp*$address";
}

JBert · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

flabdablet:
Most keyboards survive a trip through the dishwasher quite well, as long as you don't use detergent and give them a week to dry out again before plugging them back in.

[I would prefer to take them apart though](http://www.howtogeek.com/65915/how-to-clean-your-filthy-keyboard-in-the-dishwasher-without-ruining-it/)...

Even the trusty IBM Model M can have water seeping into the conductive layers, and I don't think those will dry unless you take them apart.

dkf · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

JBert:
Even the trusty IBM Model M can have water seeping into the conductive layers, and I don't think those will dry unless you take them apart.

Bake in an autoclave for a while.

anonymous234 · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

Zacrath:
Because they're professionals. They're too good for regular regex. They need… ~~Enterprise~~advanced regex.

[image]

anonymous234 · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

I think people are often too afraid to actually parse text into tokens, you know, take advantage of actual loops and conditionals that computers are good at, rather than limiting themselves to a mathematical model of computers (nondeterministic finite automatons) that's often too limited and hard to think about. Maybe programming languages don't make it as easy as it should.

Zylon · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

TDWTF:
"Perl is jokingly referred to as a “write-only language”. This is because Perl’s primary solution to any problem is to throw a regular expression at it."

False. Perl has this reputation because of its dense, cryptic, shortcut-loving syntax. Insanely complicated regexes can be written in any language.

PWolff · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

Kuro:
I need a graphical representation of that regex, please

operagost:
If that's not Codethulu, I don't know what is.

Right.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EldritchAbomination

John_Imrie · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

I think you can sanitise that even more by using qr() instead of ""

Maciejasjmj · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

oesor:
It's pretty legible

@Maciejasjmj's law #1: every discussion about regexes, no matter how insane, will always have at least one person stating that it's easy, makes perfect sense, and that they have no idea what everyone else's complaining about.

Gurth · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

herby:
Yes, regular expressions are nice, but if they take up more than a line (for various definitions of line) they become VERY write only.

This makes them fun to use in InDesign, where the text box for the regex for a GREP style (character formatting that’ll be applied to what the regex matches) is maybe 30 characters wide, so if you’re trying to do anything more complex than matching some characters — like doing lookbehinds and lookaheads — you’ll often find yourself not being able to even see the whole regex.

Add some poor UI design (or a bug, not sure what it is) so that if you press left arrow key when the insertion point is at the end of the text box (not the end of the regex), the box contents scroll right as well as moving the insertion point — keeping the insertion point at the end, so you can’t see what’s to the right of it. Oh, and a minor bug which makes the arrow keys not move the insertion point at all if you’ve changed focus from InDesign and back while the style edit window is open.

Masaaki_Hosoi · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

Trying to parse the regex, but I just can't understand it at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aegP8j5al0

EDIT: This regex... it truly is the code of noodles.

Matt_Westwood · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

Okay, so take a closer look at the start of this regex ...

([:-.,;/\

That's not actually a regex -- it's an emoticon of someone puking up.

Onyx · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

dkf:
:ive_seen_some_things.dll:

I wrote a regex that parses a regex and runs it part by part because the only function that supports regexes can only handle a single backreference...

:ive_done_some_things.deleteme:

CoyneTheDup · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

TheCPUWizard:
When it comes to "write only languages", APL (with the original greek character set) is still king!!!!

Wrong-o! APL is quite understandable once you get used to it. Just read right to left and the import of any statement is mathematically clear.

This stuff goes ...well I don't know how it goes ... I don't think this is even anchored to our universe.

Not to mention that it gives one a ... contaminated feeling...

Case in point:

chreng:
You might want to invest in a keyboard like this. It can be rinsed under water after such incidents:

See, at least APL is clean, if a little dense. This is: Unclean! Unclean!

How unclean?

operagost:
If that's not Codethulu, I don't know what is.

See? Really, really: Unclean!

Maciejasjmj · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

CoyneTheDup:
Wrong-o! APL is quite understandable once you get used to it.

Maciejasjmj:
@Maciejasjmj's law #1: every discussion about regexes, no matter how insane, will always have at least one person stating that it's easy, makes perfect sense, and that they have no idea what everyone else's complaining about.

Corollary: this can be extended to any other language.

kupfernigk · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

anonymous234:
I think people are often too afraid to actually parse text into tokens, you know, take advantage of actual loops and conditionals that computers are good at

It certainly is possible to do it and it can be much more easily maintainable, because the logic can be made explicit and so can the tokens. The difficulty is that the next person along the line may not be the kind of programmer that understands natural language parsing, whereas so many think that regexes are kewl. And they will then be faced with the need to extend the model and start trying to use regexes, thus producing a complete fustercluck.

dkf · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

Maciejasjmj:
Corollary: this can be extended to any other language.

Has anyone ported PCRE to Brainfuck yet?

Onyx · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

Are we going to have a fight about who used / knows the worst language?

No PHP, that's no fair, like Chuck Norris.

Maciejasjmj · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

kupfernigk:
and I don't want to turn into an orangutan

Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook.
Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook? Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook.
Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook? Ook! Ook! Ook? Ook! Ook? Ook.
Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook.
Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook? Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook?
Ook! Ook! Ook? Ook! Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook.
Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook.
Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook.
Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook? Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook.
Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook? Ook! Ook! Ook? Ook! Ook? Ook. Ook! Ook.
Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook.
Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook? Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook.
Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook.
Ook. Ook? Ook! Ook! Ook? Ook! Ook? Ook. Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook.
Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook.
Ook! Ook. Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook.
Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook!
Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook.

kupfernigk · 2015-03-23 Reply Admin

You lost me at "Ook!", could you provide a little contextualisation? Or a banana?

Regularly Expressing Hate

RESULTING "REGEXP"

Leave a comment on “Regularly Expressing Hate”