Full regular expressions

From: Murray S. Kucherawy <msk_at_cloudmark.com>
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 2010 10:44:40 -0700

Currently OpenDKIM doesn't expose full regular expressions to users. This is done for the sake of simplicity and accessibility to the wider population; the idea is that most people understand use of "*" as a wildcard from the shell or even going as far back as DOS days, while full regular expressions are more flexible but harder to get right. Internally, "*" is translated to ".*", "." converts to "\." and things like "^" and "$" are judiciously added, and regular expression code is applied, but it presents a much simpler interface.

So here's the question: Are we needlessly simplifying the interface? Would people prefer to have full access to regular expressions for writing things like the SigningTable? Or would this expose people to shooting themselves in the foot?

The most general answer, of course, is "offer both, make it selectable" but this complicates the code somewhat. We could do that, but I wonder if it's really necessary. Or maybe it's fine the way it is.

Just a thought. Feel free to opine. :)

-MSK
Received on Tue Jun 01 2010 - 17:44:51 PST