Tag: JavaScript

Chili development started because I found a bug at the core of Code Highlighter, and wanted to fix it. The bug was inside the snippet used to count the number of submatches of a given regular expression.

That number is central to the working of a clever parsing engine, based upon the possibility of matching once a big expression against the target, rather than matching many times smaller expressions.

The big expression is built by alternating the smaller ones, so that each of them becomes a submatch of the big expression, like in this example: (A)|(B)|(C).

But that is just the tip of the iceberg, because each of the smaller expressions can in turn have many submatches, which add up to the total number of submatches returned in an array as the result of the big match.

If a match is found, then submatches[0], which holds the global match is certainly not empty, as not empty must also be submatches[x], being x the index of the first smaller expression that matched.

In the above example, if the number of submatches of A, B, and C be always 0, then submatches[1] would be not empty if A matched, else submatches[2] would be not empty if B matched, else submatches[3] would be not empty if C matched.

But if the number of submatches of A was nA, of B nB, and of C nC, then the x for (A) would be 1, for (B) it would be (1+nA)+1, and for C it would be (1+nA)+(1+nB)+1.

Now we have all the info required for detecting the smaller expression that matched the target by looking at submatches[1], else at submatches[2+nA], or else at submatches[3+nA+nB]. The first of them which is non empty is the one that matched.

The number of open parentheses is related to the number of submatches. However it is not exactly that number, due to the following exceptions

• parentheses are also used for temporary grouping
• parentheses can be escaped, and considered part of the target
• the escaping device can be escaped

Instead of trying to count the open parentheses by means of only one expression that accounts for the above exceptions, I’ve found it’s cleaner to use three separate steps.

1. re = X.replace( /\./g, “%” )
   this removes any escaped character
2. re = re.replace( /[.*?]/g, “%” )
   this removes any character class
3. nX = ( re.match( /((?!?)/g ) || [] ).length
   this matches all the open parentheses not followed by a “?”

In particular:

1. This step disables any escaped backslash or open parenthesis (as well as any other escaped character, but I don’t care). This way I’m done with the issue of escaping based on the use of the backslash sign. The X represents the regular expression under examination
2. This step disables any open parenthesis inside any character class (as well as any other character inside any character class, but I don’t care). In fact those open parenteses could have been written without escaping them, because they are escaped by default
3. This step is just the classical short definition of what describes a submatch in a regular expression. nX represents the number of submatches of X

Here is a micro JavaScript library for computing the CRC32 of a string.

After importing the crc32.js file, a function with this signature

/* Number */ crc32( /* String */ str, /* Number = 0 */ crc )

will be available in the global scope.

If you supply only the str (which is mandatory), it returns the CRC32 code of that string (using 0 as a start, which is a de facto standard), and if you also supply the crc, it will use that number as a start. This comes in handy for chaining crc32 calls, maybe in a loop, in fact:

crc32( "Hello World!" ) == crc32( " World!", crc32( "Hello" ) )

/*  
===============================================================================
Crc32 is a JavaScript function for computing the CRC32 of a string
...............................................................................

Version: 1.2 - 2006/11 - http://noteslog.com/category/javascript/

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (c) 2006 Andrea Ercolino
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php
===============================================================================
*/

(function() {
	var table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	

	/* Number */
	crc32 = function( /* String */ str, /* Number */ crc ) {
		if( crc == window.undefined ) crc = 0;
		var n = 0; //a number between 0 and 255
		var x = 0; //an hex number

		crc = crc ^ (-1);
		for( var i = 0, iTop = str.length; i < iTop; i++ ) {
			n = ( crc ^ str.charCodeAt( i ) ) & 0xFF;
			x = "0x" + table.substr( n * 9, 8 );
			crc = ( crc >>> 8 ) ^ x;
		}
		return crc ^ (-1);
	};
})();

JavaScript lacks PHP’s concept of heredoc:

Another way to delimit strings is by using heredoc syntax (<<<). One should provide an identifier after <<<, then the string, and then the same identifier to close the quotation.

Here is a little function that can be used to emulate it. But it only works in IE (sigh). If you know how to do it also in Firefox, I’ll be very glad to update this post.

function heredoc( fn, from, top, sep ) {
	var fnBody = /functions*(s*)s*{((?:.|n)*)}/g.exec( fn )[1];
	//line number delimiters
	if( typeof from == "number" && typeof top == "number" ) {
		try {
			fnBody = fnBody.split( /r?n/ ).slice( from, top ).join( sep ? sep : "n" );
		} 
		catch( e ) {
		}
	}
	//string delimiters
	else if( typeof from == "string" && typeof top == "string" ) {
		try {
			fnBody = fnBody.split( from, 2 )[1].split( top, 2 )[0];
		} 
		catch( e ) {
		}
	}
	//variable substitution
	fnBody = fnBody.replace( /$([A-Za-z_$][w$]*)/g, function() { 
		var substitution = "";
		try	{
			substitution += eval( arguments[1] );
		}
		catch( e ) {
			substitution = arguments[0];
		}
		return substitution;
	} );
	return fnBody;
}

Really it should be called herescript, because fn (the mandatory argument) is a function declaration, so the text must be syntactically correct JavaScript code, not just plain text. This feature is very convenient when I want to defer the execution of some statements while having them highlighted by my editor, but it bothers a little when I want just a plain text.

To solve this, the function also accepts the optional arguments from and top. If I supply two numbers, the heredoc text will be all the lines between from included and top excluded. In this case I can supply also an optional separator to put in between lines. If I supply two strings, the heredoc text will be all the characters between from and top, both excluded.

myHereDoc1: when the content is a script

myHereDoc1 = heredoc( function() {
alert( 
	  "this text is"
	+ " NOT "
	+ "the content returned" 
);
} );

myHereDoc2: when the content is text, delimited by line number

myHereDoc2 = heredoc( function() { /*
this text is
the content returned
*/ }, 1, -1, "<br />" );

myHereDoc3: when the content is text, delimited by substrings

myHereDoc3 = heredoc( function() { /*
START
this text is the content returned
STOP
but this text is not
START
nor is this
STOP
*/ }, "START", "STOP" );

To try all these examples together, we can write this: {[.example-standard /enzymes/chili-js.php]}

to get this:

But cha-chaaa, here goes a bonus. Using a heredoc like this:

document.open();
document.write( 
	  "<p style='border: 1px dotted silver; padding: 5px;'>" 
	+ heredoc( function() { /*
myHereDoc1 = |$myHereDoc1|
alert( myHereDoc1 );
eval( myHereDoc1 );
 
myHereDoc2 = |$myHereDoc2|
alert( myHereDoc2 );
 
myHereDoc3 = |$myHereDoc3|
alert( myHereDoc3 );
*/ }, 1, -1, "<br />" )
	.replace( /alert( myHereDocd );/g, "$&".link( "javascript:$&" ) )
	.replace( /eval( myHereDoc1 );/, "$&".link( "javascript:$&" ) )
	+ "</p>"
);
document.close();

the same result is achieved, but the javascript code is much cleaner: