To expand on this, general usage of the following terms could be defined as follows:
- Template: A format used for describing output
- Format: A way of abstractly expressing how something should look, as opposed to what the content should be
- Regular Expression: A way of defining some set of matching criteria, often used for limiting or parsing input
- Mask: A format used for constraining input
Hopefully, that helps!
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We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age. The idea is a little like C++ templates, except not quite so brain-meltingly complicated. -- TheDamian, Exegesis 6 Please remember that I'm crufty and crochety. All opinions are purely mine and all code is untested, unless otherwise specified. | [reply] |
Yes. And it offers me a way to expand my previous answer. You say that a template is "a format used for describing output". I'll go further, saying that a template generates a language (i.e. a set of strings). On the other hand a regular expression denotes a language, then is usable to recognize strings that belong or not to a set. Since the original question asked for a way to recognize strings in a set, I suggested to change terminology in order to be conducted to the right abstraction that Perl provides.
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