[31893] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 3156 Volume: 11
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Fri Oct 1 03:09:31 2010
Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2010 00:09:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: Perl-Users Digest <Perl-Users-Request@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU>
To: Perl-Users@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Perl-Users Digest Fri, 1 Oct 2010 Volume: 11 Number: 3156
Today's topics:
Re: Need Regex for phone number <tzz@lifelogs.com>
Re: Need Regex for phone number <stanley@peak.org>
Re: Need Regex for phone number <jurgenex@hotmail.com>
Re: Need Regex for phone number <jurgenex@hotmail.com>
Re: Need Regex for phone number <cwilbur@chromatico.net>
Re: Need Regex for phone number <cwilbur@chromatico.net>
Re: Need Regex for phone number <jurgenex@hotmail.com>
Re: Need Regex for phone number <jurgenex@hotmail.com>
Re: Need Regex for phone number <cwilbur@chromatico.net>
Re: Need Regex for phone number <uri@StemSystems.com>
Re: Need Regex for phone number <uri@StemSystems.com>
Re: Need Regex for phone number <bart.lateur@telenet.be>
Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: tadmc@seesig.invalid
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:16:01 -0500
From: Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com>
Subject: Re: Need Regex for phone number
Message-Id: <874od622f2.fsf@lifelogs.com>
On Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:28:27 -0400 "Uri Guttman" <uri@StemSystems.com> wrote:
>>>>>> "TZ" == Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:
TZ> The Brainbench Perl tests are also good at filtering out the rabble.
TZ> It's a commercial service so YMMV but for me it's been helpful.
UG> i dislike them in particular and pretty much any multiple choice
UG> automated test. they don't show how someone thinks or codes. code
UG> review and coding assignments of simple problems are much better
UG> indicators. i actually would downgrade anyone who promoted their
UG> brainbench score.
As I said, YMMV and I'm certainly not advocating it as an alternative to
intelligent questions. My experience has been good using it as a
low-pass filter.
Ted
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:49:21 -0700
From: John Stanley <stanley@peak.org>
Subject: Re: Need Regex for phone number
Message-Id: <alpine.LRH.2.00.1009301735480.16821@shell.peak.org>
On Thu, 30 Sep 2010, Uri Guttman wrote:
> you just blew the interview. NEXT!!
Nope. As soon as this interviewer told me I failed his test because I
didn't include code to deal with a specification he had explicitely
REMOVED from the question, he failed the interview. You can't hire/not
hire someone who has decided they won't work for you in the first place.
> you haven't done much screening of perl candidates it seems. or talked
> to many who do.
Nope. But if I did do that, and I got caught by an interviewee changing
the requirements in mid-question, and then said he failed because he
didn't do something I said wasn't required anymore, I'd be ashamed to be
doing that job. Yes, it might be fun to toy with people that way, for a
while, but the people that live through that experience aren't those I'd
want to hire.
If I did do that job, I'd be much more interested in looking at some large
coding project he wrote than at his one-liners or "golf scores".
And I responded to this for the same reason that Peter mentioned: idiots
who think they can determine "valid" email addresses without looking at
the RFC and knowing what characters are and are not valid. Like "+" in the
local part. This "test" promotes that concept -- don't look at the
standard, just use your personal experience to codify the rule, and by
all means "do what I meant, not what I said".
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 18:59:45 -0700
From: Jürgen Exner <jurgenex@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Need Regex for phone number
Message-Id: <9ifaa6hglimabc8ejobt3r238kik6afs2h@4ax.com>
Ben Morrow <ben@morrow.me.uk> wrote:
>Quoth lotug <ernesto@ernestoreyes.com>:
>> Yes, I was looking for regex that would identify the phone number in a
>> txt string regardless of how it was formatted. Different people input
>> phone numbers in different ways. Also, I have regex that identifies a
>> phone number in a string, but I'm looking for perl regex that will
>> identify this particular number within a text string.
>>
>> 3108222400
>> (310) 822-2400
>> 1(310) 822-2400
>> 1-310-822-2400
>
>For those forms, something like
>
> /1? [-(]? 310 [-)]? \s* 822 -? 2400/x
>
>may be sufficient, though it will catch strings like '-310)8222400'
>that you don't want.
>
>> Etc., etc.
>
>You will need to make a complete list of all the forms you want to
>catch, and create a regex that matches them. Probably the best way is a
>simple alternation, which you can build like
>
> my @cases = (
> "3108222400",
> "(310) 82202400",
> "1(310) 822-2400",
> "1-310-822-2400",
> );
Don't forget formats like
+49 30 314 123456
(030) 314-123456
01149 5772 5871
(05771) 123
Yes, all of these are legitimate and commonly used phone number
patterns, I just changed the actual digits.
jue
> my ($pattern) = map qr/$_/, join "|", map "\Q$_", @cases;
>
>Ben
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:06:31 -0700
From: Jürgen Exner <jurgenex@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Need Regex for phone number
Message-Id: <n5gaa659u36u6hbh9knhlqakn7cidkv64d@4ax.com>
Charlton Wilbur <cwilbur@chromatico.net> wrote:
>If you don't have basic Perl knowledge -- and a level of regular
>expressions knowledge sufficient to make at least a reasonable attempt
>at solving that problem -- then you are unsuited to a position where you
>will be expected to program in Perl. Since programming in Perl is a
>primary requirement for the positions I'm interviewing candidates for,
>assessing whether or not they have a working knowledge of basic to
>intermediate Perl is one of my primary goals in the interview.
The problem as stated cannot be solved without massive AI or a large
background list of acceptable phone number formats. There must be
hundreds of commonly used formats. _THAT_ is the real challenge.
Once you have that list then writing an acceptance test for each of them
is the trivial part. into
Now, had you phrased the question differently, e.g. "Assuming you have a
US phone number with 9 or 6 digits, how would you parse it into area
code and number?", now that would be a totally different story.
jue
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 22:05:40 -0400
From: Charlton Wilbur <cwilbur@chromatico.net>
Subject: Re: Need Regex for phone number
Message-Id: <86eica8y6j.fsf@mithril.chromatico.net>
>>>>> "JS" == John Stanley <stanley@peak.org> writes:
JS> On Thu, 30 Sep 2010, Uri Guttman wrote:
>> you just blew the interview. NEXT!!
JS> Nope. As soon as this interviewer told me I failed his test
JS> because I didn't include code to deal with a specification he
JS> had explicitely REMOVED from the question, he failed the
JS> interview.
The original spec:
>> We have a text-input field that we ask the user to type a
>> telephone number into. As part of data validation, we need to
>> know if it's a valid phone number and to identify the area code.
>> Please write some code to do that.
The instruction was "Substitute well-formed for valid." The result:
>> We have a text-input field that we ask the user to type a
>> telephone number into. As part of data validation, we need to
>> know if it's a well-formed phone number and to identify the area
>> code. Please write some code to do that.
If you're going to play nit-picky semantic games, you need to play them
a whole lot better than that.
Charlton
--
Charlton Wilbur
cwilbur@chromatico.net
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 22:09:03 -0400
From: Charlton Wilbur <cwilbur@chromatico.net>
Subject: Re: Need Regex for phone number
Message-Id: <86aamy8y0w.fsf@mithril.chromatico.net>
>>>>> "PJH" == Peter J Holzer <hjp-usenet2@hjp.at> writes:
PJH> On 2010-09-30 19:00, Charlton Wilbur <cwilbur@chromatico.net> wrote:
>> Precisely. It's a toy problem that any competent Perl programmer
>> should be able to come up with a reasonable solution to within 10
>> minutes.
PJH> The problem is that there are way too many programmers which
PJH> then take their solution to your "toy problem" and apply it to
PJH> the real world.
There are. I am not sure why you think this invalidates its use as an
interview question to determine whether a candidate claiming Perl
expertise actually knows rudimentary Perl, which is what I offered it
as.
Charlton
--
Charlton Wilbur
cwilbur@chromatico.net
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:14:04 -0700
From: Jürgen Exner <jurgenex@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Need Regex for phone number
Message-Id: <2ngaa6t55g0a9mh0hvrnincp3pohk98clv@4ax.com>
"Uri Guttman" <uri@StemSystems.com> wrote:
>>>>>> "PJH" == Peter J Holzer <hjp-usenet2@hjp.at> writes:
> PJH> The problem is that there are way too many programmers which then take
> PJH> their solution to your "toy problem" and apply it to the real world.
> PJH> There are a lot of registration forms which require a phone number as a
> PJH> mandatory field but don't accept my phone number because it it has too
> PJH> few or too many digits or I have formatted it differently than the
> PJH> programmer expected (and of course he doesn't tell me what he expects -
> PJH> he just tells me "please enter a valid phone number" and deletes the
> PJH> other 20 fields I have already entered. There are also forms which don't
> PJH> accept email addresses with a "+" in the local part, or punctuation in a
> PJH> house number. And so on.
>
>you are missing the point. it is NOT a real world problem. it is just an
>exercise given during an interview.
And for that purpose insufficient information was provided to the
candidate.
The question is so broad that you need quite some knowledge to even
recognize what information is missing before you can start coding your
REs.
In the form and style the original question was stated this first step
is appropriate for an interview for a Senior International Program
Manager position, not for a developer.
jue
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:19:15 -0700
From: Jürgen Exner <jurgenex@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Need Regex for phone number
Message-Id: <53haa6po883hjj9uvi6mlu66aim5cjlljc@4ax.com>
Charlton Wilbur <cwilbur@chromatico.net> wrote:
>The answers: We need to make sure we have a reasonable phone number in
>order to contact customers. Marketing wants area code information
>because it's the key into their demographics information system.
Sorry, there are countries that don't have area codes.
> We're
>only dealing with North American phone numbers here,
Ahhhhhh, there we go! Finally something you can actually work on.
>and we're using
>freeform form field entry, so we're dealing with whatever people give
>us. If validation fails, we just respond with a "Your phone number was
>not understood" message, and ask the user to re-enter it.
Now, this is what I call a reasonable question in an interview for a
programmer position. You _finally_ restricted it enough to make sense.
jue
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 22:10:51 -0400
From: Charlton Wilbur <cwilbur@chromatico.net>
Subject: Re: Need Regex for phone number
Message-Id: <8662xm8xxw.fsf@mithril.chromatico.net>
>>>>> "TZ" == Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:
TZ> The Brainbench Perl tests are also good at filtering out the
TZ> rabble. It's a commercial service so YMMV but for me it's been
TZ> helpful.
I took the Brainbench C tests some time back, and I was drastically
underimpressed. I'm not sure I'd expect their Perl tests to be
materially better.
Charlton
--
Charlton Wilbur
cwilbur@chromatico.net
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 23:47:50 -0400
From: "Uri Guttman" <uri@StemSystems.com>
Subject: Re: Need Regex for phone number
Message-Id: <87bp7esheh.fsf@quad.sysarch.com>
>>>>> "JS" == John Stanley <stanley@peak.org> writes:
JS> On Thu, 30 Sep 2010, Uri Guttman wrote:
>> you just blew the interview. NEXT!!
JS> Nope. As soon as this interviewer told me I failed his test because I
JS> didn't include code to deal with a specification he had explicitely
JS> REMOVED from the question, he failed the interview. You can't hire/not
JS> hire someone who has decided they won't work for you in the first
JS> place.
you failed again. i don't hire people. i place them. i also screen based
on communication skills. you fail there too.
>> you haven't done much screening of perl candidates it seems. or talked
>> to many who do.
JS> Nope. But if I did do that, and I got caught by an interviewee changing
JS> the requirements in mid-question, and then said he failed because he
JS> didn't do something I said wasn't required anymore, I'd be ashamed to
JS> be doing that job. Yes, it might be fun to toy with people that way,
JS> for a while, but the people that live through that experience aren't
JS> those I'd want to hire.
you don't get it. your loss.
JS> If I did do that job, I'd be much more interested in looking at some
JS> large coding project he wrote than at his one-liners or "golf scores".
and you still don't get it.
use Get::A::Clue ;
uri
--
Uri Guttman ------ uri@stemsystems.com -------- http://www.sysarch.com --
----- Perl Code Review , Architecture, Development, Training, Support ------
--------- Gourmet Hot Cocoa Mix ---- http://bestfriendscocoa.com ---------
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 23:50:31 -0400
From: "Uri Guttman" <uri@StemSystems.com>
Subject: Re: Need Regex for phone number
Message-Id: <877hi2sha0.fsf@quad.sysarch.com>
>>>>> "JE" == Jürgen Exner <jurgenex@hotmail.com> writes:
JE> "Uri Guttman" <uri@StemSystems.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> "PJH" == Peter J Holzer <hjp-usenet2@hjp.at> writes:
PJH> The problem is that there are way too many programmers which then take
PJH> their solution to your "toy problem" and apply it to the real world.
PJH> There are a lot of registration forms which require a phone number as a
PJH> mandatory field but don't accept my phone number because it it has too
PJH> few or too many digits or I have formatted it differently than the
PJH> programmer expected (and of course he doesn't tell me what he expects -
PJH> he just tells me "please enter a valid phone number" and deletes the
PJH> other 20 fields I have already entered. There are also forms which don't
PJH> accept email addresses with a "+" in the local part, or punctuation in a
PJH> house number. And so on.
>>
>> you are missing the point. it is NOT a real world problem. it is just an
>> exercise given during an interview.
JE> And for that purpose insufficient information was provided to the
JE> candidate.
JE> The question is so broad that you need quite some knowledge to even
JE> recognize what information is missing before you can start coding your
JE> REs.
JE> In the form and style the original question was stated this first step
JE> is appropriate for an interview for a Senior International Program
JE> Manager position, not for a developer.
come on, you know better than that. it doesn't need more specs. it is a
simple probe of perl skills and problem solving. as has been said before
the ability to know the spec is weak and asking about it is a plus for
the candidate. so it makes for an even better test of how they analyze a
problem.
i am amazed at the analness of those who think this is a bad thing to
do on an interview. wow. i interview dozens of perl hackers a year. i
may know something about this area.
uri
--
Uri Guttman ------ uri@stemsystems.com -------- http://www.sysarch.com --
----- Perl Code Review , Architecture, Development, Training, Support ------
--------- Gourmet Hot Cocoa Mix ---- http://bestfriendscocoa.com ---------
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2010 08:44:40 +0200
From: Bart Lateur <bart.lateur@telenet.be>
Subject: Re: Need Regex for phone number
Message-Id: <eo0ba65aq2vq1jjfiskgrqt66r49oqq55d@4ax.com>
Jürgen Exner wrote:
>And for that purpose insufficient information was provided to the
>candidate.
>The question is so broad that you need quite some knowledge to even
>recognize what information is missing before you can start coding your
>REs.
What's worse: I've got the impression that the interviewer doesn't even
*know* what information is missing.
--
Bart.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2010 02:08:44 -0500
From: tadmc@seesig.invalid
Subject: Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: 1.9 $)
Message-Id: <v9Kdnc4MKNJhFTjRnZ2dnUVZ5tOdnZ2d@giganews.com>
Outline
Before posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Must
- Check the Perl Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
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Really Really Should
- Lurk for a while before posting
- Search a Usenet archive
If You Like
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Posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Is there a better place to ask your question?
- Question should be about Perl, not about the application area
How to participate (post) in the clpmisc community
- Carefully choose the contents of your Subject header
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Social faux pas to avoid
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Be extra cautious when you get upset
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-----------------------------------------------------------------
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Show the output (including the verbatim text of any messages) of
your program.
Describe how you want the output to be different from what you are
getting.
If you have no idea at all of how to code up your situation, be sure
to at least describe the 2 things that you *do* know: input and
desired output.
Do not provide too much information
Do not just post your entire program for debugging. Most especially
do not post someone *else's* entire program.
Do not post binaries, HTML, or MIME
clpmisc is a text only newsgroup. If you have images or binaries
that explain your question, put them in a publically accessible
place (like a Web server) and provide a pointer to that location. If
you include code, cut and paste it directly in the message body.
Don't attach anything to the message. Don't post vcards or HTML.
Many people (and even some Usenet servers) will automatically filter
out such messages. Many people will not be able to easily read your
post. Plain text is something everyone can read.
Social faux pas to avoid
The first two below are symptoms of lots of FAQ asking here in clpmisc.
It happens so often that folks will assume that it is happening yet
again. If you have looked but not found, or found but didn't understand
the docs, say so in your article.
Asking a Frequently Asked Question
It should be understood that you may have missed the applicable FAQ
when you checked, which is not a big deal. But if the Frequently
Asked Question is worded similar to your question, folks will assume
that you did not look at all. Don't become indignant at pointers to
the FAQ, particularly if it solves your problem.
Asking a question easily answered by a cursory doc search
If folks think you have not even tried the obvious step of reading
the docs applicable to your problem, they are likely to become
annoyed.
If you are flamed for not checking when you *did* check, then just
shrug it off (and take the answer that you got).
Asking for emailed answers
Emailed answers benefit one person. Posted answers benefit the
entire community. If folks can take the time to answer your
question, then you can take the time to go get the answer in the
same place where you asked the question.
It is OK to ask for a *copy* of the answer to be emailed, but many
will ignore such requests anyway. If you munge your address, you
should never expect (or ask) to get email in response to a Usenet
post.
Ask the question here, get the answer here (maybe).
Beware of saying "doesn't work"
This is a "red flag" phrase. If you find yourself writing that,
pause and see if you can't describe what is not working without
saying "doesn't work". That is, describe how it is not what you
want.
Sending a "stealth" Cc copy
A "stealth Cc" is when you both email and post a reply without
indicating *in the body* that you are doing so.
Be extra cautious when you get upset
Count to ten before composing a followup when you are upset
This is recommended in all Usenet newsgroups. Here in clpmisc, most
flaming sub-threads are not about any feature of Perl at all! They
are most often for what was seen as a breach of netiquette. If you
have lurked for a bit, then you will know what is expected and won't
make such posts in the first place.
But if you get upset, wait a while before writing your followup. I
recommend waiting at least 30 minutes.
Count to ten after composing and before posting when you are upset
After you have written your followup, wait *another* 30 minutes
before committing yourself by posting it. You cannot take it back
once it has been said.
AUTHOR
Tad McClellan and many others on the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup.
--
Tad McClellan
email: perl -le "print scalar reverse qq/moc.liamg\100cm.j.dat/"
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.
------------------------------
Date: 6 Apr 2001 21:33:47 GMT (Last modified)
From: Perl-Users-Request@ruby.oce.orst.edu (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
Subject: Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01)
Message-Id: <null>
Administrivia:
To submit articles to comp.lang.perl.announce, send your article to
clpa@perl.com.
Back issues are available via anonymous ftp from
ftp://cil-www.oce.orst.edu/pub/perl/old-digests.
#For other requests pertaining to the digest, send mail to
#perl-users-request@ruby.oce.orst.edu. Do not waste your time or mine
#sending perl questions to the -request address, I don't have time to
#answer them even if I did know the answer.
------------------------------
End of Perl-Users Digest V11 Issue 3156
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