NAME

Regexp::Ethiopic - Regular Expressions Support for Ethiopic Script.

SYNOPSIS

 #
 #  Overloading Perl REs:
 #
 use utf8;
 use Regexp::Ethiopic qw(:forms overload setForm);

 :

 s/([#2#])/setForm($1,$áˆ³á‹µáˆµ)/eg;
 s/([áˆ˜áˆ¨á‰ á‹ˆ]{#2#})/setForm($1,$áˆ³á‹µáˆµ)/eg;
 s/([áˆ˜áˆ¨á‰ á‹ˆ]{#1,3#})/setForm($1,$áˆ³á‹µáˆµ)/eg;
 s/([áˆ˜áˆ¨á‰ á‹ˆ]{#1-3,7#})/setForm($1,$áˆ³á‹µáˆµ)/eg;
 s/([#á€#])/subForm('áŒ¸',$1)/eg;  # substitute, a 'áŒ¸' for a 'á€' in the form found for the 'á€'

 if ( /[#áŠ˜#]/ ) {
   #
   # do something
   #
   :
 }

 :
 :

 #
 #  Without overloading:
 #
 use utf8;
 require Regexp::Ethiopic;

 my $string = "[áˆ˜áˆ¨á‰ á‹ˆ]{#1-3,7#}";
 my $re = Regexp::Ethiopic::getRe ( $string );

 s/abc($re)xyz/"abc".Regexp::Ethipic::setForm($1,6)."xyz"/eg;

DESCRIPTION

The Regexp::Ethiopic module provides POSIX style character class definitions for working with the Ethiopic syllabary. The character classes provided by the Regexp::Ethiopic package correspond to inate properties of the script and are language independent.

The Regexp::Ethiopic package is NOT derived from the Regexp class and may not be instantiated into an object. Regexp::Ethiopic can optionally export the utility functions getForm, setForm, subForm and formatForms (or all with the :utils pragma) to query or set the form of an Ethiopic character. Tags of variables in the form names set to form values may be exported under the :forms pragma.

See the files in the doc/ and examples/ directories that are included with this package.

Substituion Utilities

getForm

A utility function to query the "form" of an Ethiopic syllable. It will return an integer between 1 and 12 corresponding to the [#\d+#] classes.

  print getForm ( "áŠ " ), "\n";  # prints 1

setForm

A utility function to set the form number of a syllable. The form number must be an integer between 1 and 12 corresponding to the [#\d+#] classes.

  s/(.)/setForm($1, 1)/eg;

subForm

A utility function to set the form number of a syllable based on the form of another syllable.

  s/(\w+)([#á€#])/$1.subForm('áŒ¸', $2)/eg;

formatForms

A utility function somewhat analogous to sprintf for a sequence of syllables:

  print formatForms ( "%1%2%3%4", "áŠ á‰ áŒˆá‹°" ), "\n";  # prints áŠ á‰¡áŒŠá‹³

LIMITATIONS

The overloading mechanism only applies to the constant part of the RE. The following would not be handled by the Regexp::Ethipic package as expected:

  use Regexp::Ethiopic 'overload';

  my $x = "áŠ¨";
        :
        :
  if ( /[#$x#]/ ) {
        :
        :
  }

The package never gets to see the variable $x to then perform the RE expansion. The work around is to use the package as per:

  use Regexp::Ethiopic 'overload';

  my $x = "áŠ¨";
        :
        :
  my $re = Regexp::Ethiopic::getRe ( "[#$x#]" );

  if ( /$re/ ) {
        :
        :
  }

This works as expected at the cost of one extra step. The overloading and functional modes of the Regexp::Ethiopic package may be used together without conflict.