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[bergus]

So, the results are in, and it seems they declined RegExp.escape and this is a final decision.

What alternatives do we have? Of course we could just fall back on a user-land implementation (like ljharb/regexp.escape, are there others?) as mentioned, but what if we want to press on?

• RegExp.fromString, #33, with regex combinators as RegExp.prototype methods, to provide a fluent interface for regex construction/combination
• RegExp.tag, for template strings, avoids double-escaping by accessing the .raw template parts, and solves the problem with trailing backslashes (example)

Both do have a problem with flags though, which are difficult to express. Is there anything else?

[bergus]

The first thing to do is probably to find a reasonable name for RegExp.tag (tag is horrible) before it settles in our minds.

[benjamingr]

RegExp.escaped but I don't feel like a tag is the "right" way to go forward yet.

[bergus]

Oh, and judging from the discussion in #37 there seems to be confusion on what such a tagging function would return. Everyone seems to expect a string (that needs to be passed into the RegExp constructor then), but I would propose it to return a regex instance? Or maybe a function that takes the flags as an argument, so that we could write something like

 RegExp.… `\s*${input}\s*` ("ig")

[ljharb]

It should probably only return a RegExp instance, otherwise all of the same compositional problems will exist as do with escape.

Changing the flags is trivial by wrapping in the constructor: RegExp(existingRegExp, newFlags)

[erights]

I am pleased to bring https://github.com/mikesamuel/regexp-make-js to your attention. @mikesamuel and I (mostly Mike) put together this draft informal specification and prototype implementation for what the RegExp template string tag should be. We think this is a comprehensive and principled approach ready for examination and discussion. Would it be better to discuss this here on this thread, or over at https://github.com/mikesamuel/regexp-make-js ?

This prototype implementation currently uses some ES6 features that are directly implemented only on Firefox. After reading the README, I suggest reading the tests next while visiting https://rawgit.com/mikesamuel/regexp-make-js/master/test.html in a Firefox browser. I think the tests should quickly clear up most questions about what the draft spec means. Please point out any ambiguities that remain. Thanks!

[bergus]

@erights A new repository seems suited for discussion of this particular approach. As you can see, I've just opened 6 issues there :-)

[benjamingr]

@erights that proposal looks abandoned, status?