Re: 20050728: LDM EREs

Brian,

> To: address@hidden
> From: Brian Olsen <address@hidden>
> Subject: LDM EREs
> Organization: MesoWest
> Keywords: 200507282209.j6SM9ljo002401

The above message contained the following:

> The LDM on my machine currently has the two following pqact entries...
> 
> WMO     ^S[AP](US|XX|CN|AK|HW|MX).. (....) ([0-3][0-9])([0-2][0-9])(..)
>         PIPE    -close  /usr/local/ldm/mesowest/process/metar2db_wmo2_qc_yesdb
>         /usr/local/ldm/mesowest/tmp/metar
>         /usr/local/ldm/mesowest/data/sfstns_nws.tbl
>         %y %m
> US|XX|CN|AK|HW|MX
> ... and ...
> 
> WMO     ^NZUS(07) KPQR ([0-3][0-9])([0-2][0-9])
>         PIPE    -close  /usr/local/ldm/mesowest/process/metar2db_wmo2_qc_yesdb
>         /usr/local/ldm/mesowest/tmp/metar
>         /usr/local/ldm/mesowest/data/sfstns_nws.tbl
>         %y %m
> 
> ...that I would like to combine.  The action for both is identical.
> Since the action is not referencing to any substring, my first
> inclination was to replace the parentheses with square brackets.  I
> soon learned this would not work.  How can I have "or" logic without
> using parentheses?  In the end, I would like to have something like:
>
> WMO ^[[NZUS07]|[[SA|SP][US|XX|CN|AK|HW|MX]..]] ....
[0-3][0-9][0-2][0-9]..
>
> ...but of course, this is wrong.

First, since there are no string substitution backreferences, the ERE-s can
be simplified by removed unnecessary parentheses:

WMO     ^S[AP](US|XX|CN|AK|HW|MX).. .... [0-3][0-9][0-2][0-9]..

WMO     ^NZUS07 KPQR [0-3][0-9][0-2][0-9]

Then, the simplest thing to do is to group the individual ERE-s using the 
grouping operator, "()", and then use the alternation operator, "|", i.e.,

WMO     (^S[AP](US|XX|CN|AK|HW|MX).. .... [0-3][0-9][0-2][0-9]..)|(^NZUS07 KPQR 
[0-3][0-9][0-2][0-9])

The beginning-of-string metacharacter can be "pulled out":

WMO     ^((S[AP](US|XX|CN|AK|HW|MX).. .... [0-3][0-9][0-2][0-9]..)|(NZUS07 KPQR 
[0-3][0-9][0-2][0-9]))

If the day-of-month and hour string always has two characters after it, then
the above can be further compressed to

WMO     ^((S[AP](US|XX|CN|AK|HW|MX).. .... )|(^NZUS07 KPQR 
))[0-3][0-9][0-2][0-9]..

Good luck.

> --Brian Olsen
> MesoWest

Regards,
Steve Emmerson

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