Bug#311321: RFP: redet -- regular expression development and execution tool

[Bartosz Fenski aka fEnIo <fenio@debian.org>]

Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: Bartosz Fenski aka fEnIo <fenio@debian.org>

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* Package name    : redet
  Version         : 6.5
  Upstream Author : William J. Poser <billposer@alum.mit.edu>
* URL             : http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~wjposer/redet.html
* License         : GPL
  Description     : regular expression development and execution tool

Redet allows the user to construct regular expressions and test them
against input data by executing any of a variety of search programs,
editors, and programming languages that make use of regular expressions.
When a suitable regular expression has been constructed it may be saved to
a file. redet stands for Regular Expression Development and Execution Tool.
For each program, a palette showing the available regular expression syntax
is provided. Selections from the palette may be copied to the regular
expression window with a mouse click. Users may add their own definitions
to the palette via their initialization file. Redet also keeps a list of
the regular expressions executed, from which entries may be copied back
into the regular expression under construction. The history list is saved
to a file and restored on startup, so it persists across sessions. So long
as the underlying program supports Unicode, redet allows UTF-8 Unicode in
both test data and regular expressions.

Comparision with other similar tools:

 * Redet supports many programs. Most other regexp tools are aimed at
   a single language or style of regular expression.
 * Redet determines the properties of the programs that actually execute
   the regular expressions empirically. This guarantees that the version of
   the program you are using will actually behave as described. It also makes
   it likely that if new features are added to a program's regular expression
   repertoire, they will be detected and shown on the palette without any
   modification to the program.
 * Redet is explicitly designed for use in a variety of languages and
   writing systems. It provides the ability to change locale without exiting
   and reports whether Unicode support is available for each combination of
   program and locale. It provides special support for Unicode, such as lists
   of Unicode ranges and character properties. Redet itself is fully
   internationalized. By adding a suitable translation catalogue, buttons,
   labels, and messages may all be provided in any language.
 * Most regular expression tools are useful for constructing and
   understanding regular expressions but are not designed for use as search
   environments. Redet provides a number of facilities that make it a good
   search environment, including a relatively large, re-sizable text window,
   the ability to enter both regular expressions and data in various ways and
   to save them to files, editable, persistent history, and journalling.
 * Redet handles both matching and substitution. Most programs deal only
   with matching.
 * Redet allows the user to define named character classes and to
   intersect them.


- -- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.4.27-2-686
Locale: LANG=pl_PL, LC_CTYPE=pl_PL (charmap=ISO-8859-2)

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