Added a method for most efficient to concatenate many strings.

verbalexpressions/verbal_expressions.py

@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ class VerEx(object):
  except `tab` and `add`.
  '''
  def __init__(self):
- self.s = ''
+ self.s = []
  self.modifiers = {'I': 0, 'M': 0}
 
  def __getattr__(self, attr):
@@ -32,20 +32,20 @@ def __getattr__(self, attr):
  return getattr(regex, attr)
 
  def __str__(self):
- return self.s
+ return ''.join(self.s)
 
- def add(self, value):
- self.s += value
+ def add(self, *args):
+ self.s.extend(list(args))
  return self
 
  def regex(self):
  ''' get a regular expression object. '''
- return re.compile(self.s, self.modifiers['I'] | self.modifiers['M'])
+ return re.compile(str(self), self.modifiers['I'] | self.modifiers['M'])
  compile = regex
 
  def source(self):
  ''' return the raw string'''
- return self.s
+ return str(self)
  raw = value = source
 
  # ---------------------------------------------
@@ -55,28 +55,28 @@ def anything(self):
 
  @re_escape
  def anything_but(self, value):
- return self.add('([^' + value + ']*)')
+ return self.add('([^', value, ']*)')
 
  def end_of_line(self):
  return self.add('$')
 
  @re_escape
  def maybe(self, value):
- return self.add("(" + value + ")?")
+ return self.add("(", value, ")?")
 
  def start_of_line(self):
  return self.add('^')
 
  @re_escape
  def find(self, value):
- return self.add('(' + value + ')')
+ return self.add('(', value, ')')
  then = find
 
  # special characters and groups
 
  @re_escape
  def any(self, value):
- return self.add("([" + value + "])")
+ return self.add("([", value, "])")
  any_of = any
 
  def line_break(self):
@@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ def line_break(self):
  @re_escape
  def range(self, *args):
  from_tos = [args[i:i+2] for i in range(0, len(args), 2)]
- return self.add("([" + ''.join(['-'.join(i) for i in from_tos]) + "])")
+ return self.add("([", ''.join(['-'.join(i) for i in from_tos]), "])")
 
  def tab(self):
  return self.add(r'\t')