Variables and Reversibility in Object Oriented Regular Expressions

Regular expressions are used to parse textual data to match patterns and extract variables. They have been implemented in a vast number of programming languages with a significant quantity of research devoted to improving their operational efficiency. However, little research has been done in extending regular expressions so as to increase their usefulness in object-oriented languages. In doing so, it is possible to parse textual or binary data to construct multilayered objects by simply defining the representation of each of those objects individually. Furthermore, it then becomes possible to reverse the regular expression process using the same representations, converting objects into textual or binary data. This paper describes the functionality required in regular expressions to add these two novel contributions. Example syntax and case studies are also presented.