1638: Backslashes - Revision history

CalibansCreations: /* Explanation */

2025-02-11T11:43:29Z

‎Explanation

42.book.addict: added Category:Demons using HotCat

2024-11-04T17:52:45Z

added Category:Demons using HotCat

CalibansCreations at 07:13, 24 October 2024

2024-10-24T07:13:48Z

172.71.242.2: Undo revision 337499 by 172.71.242.218 (talk) Revised undo (i.e. re-removed the Incomplete tag) to restore the reason for the accidentally removed introduction to the first quote.

2024-03-15T21:54:59Z

Undo revision 337499 by 172.71.242.218 (talk) Revised undo (i.e. re-removed the Incomplete tag) to restore the reason for the accidentally removed introduction to the first quote.

172.71.242.218 at 19:05, 15 March 2024

2024-03-15T19:05:33Z

172.69.79.139: Undo revision 336969 by 172.71.166.207 (talk) Not sure why this was made less informative (and unlinking)...

2024-03-10T23:05:30Z

Undo revision 336969 by 172.71.166.207 (talk) Not sure why this was made *less* informative (and unlinking)...

172.71.166.207 at 21:16, 10 March 2024

2024-03-10T21:16:16Z

172.68.35.95 at 15:49, 7 February 2024

2024-02-07T15:49:56Z

172.70.178.112: /* Note on Title Text */

2024-02-06T18:31:02Z

‎Note on Title Text

Sir Urquhart: Undo revision 289268 by 108.162.245.131 (talk)

2022-07-20T19:31:27Z

Undo revision 289268 by 108.162.245.131 (talk)

@@ Line 22: / Line 22: @@
 Even advanced users who completely understand the concept often have a hard time figuring out exactly how many backslashes are required in a given situation. It is hopelessly frustrating to carefully calculate exactly the number of backslashes and then noticing that there's a mistake so the whole thing doesn't work. At a point, it becomes easier to just keep throwing backslashes in until things work than trying to reason what the correct number is.
-It's unclear whether the regular expression in the title text is valid or not. A long discussion about the validity of the expression has occurred here on this explanation's [[Talk:1638: Backslashes|talk page]]. The fact that many editors of the site, often themselves extremely technically qualified,{{Citation needed}}<sup>{{Citation needed}}</sup> can't determine whether the expression is valid or not, adds a meta layer to the joke of the comic. This is an example of [[356: Nerd Sniping|nerd sniping]] (oh, the irony\!\!\!\).
+It's unclear whether the regular expression in the title text is valid or not. A long discussion about the validity of the expression has occurred here on this explanation's [[Talk:1638: Backslashes|talk page]]. The fact that many editors of the site, often themselves extremely technically qualified,{{Citation needed}}<sup>{{Citation needed}}<sup>{{Citation needed}}</sup></sup> can't determine whether the expression is valid or not, adds a meta layer to the joke of the comic. This is an example of [[356: Nerd Sniping|nerd sniping]] (oh, the irony\!\!\!\).
 ===Entries in the list===

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:52, 4 November 2024
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	[[Category:Programming]]		[[Category:Programming]]
	[[Category:Ba'al, the Soul Eater]]		[[Category:Ba'al, the Soul Eater]]
		+	[[Category:Demons]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 07:13, 24 October 2024
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	[[Category:Regex]]		[[Category:Regex]]
	[[Category:Programming]]		[[Category:Programming]]
		+	[[Category:Ba'al, the Soul Eater]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:54, 15 March 2024
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	==Note on Title Text==		==Note on Title Text==
		+	The title text when first published was

	I searched my .bash_history for the line with the highest ratio of special characters to regular alphanumeric characters, and the winner was: cat out.txt \| grep -o "\\\[[(].\\\[\])][^)\]]$" ... I have no memory of this and no idea what I was trying to do, but I sure hope it worked.		I searched my .bash_history for the line with the highest ratio of special characters to regular alphanumeric characters, and the winner was: cat out.txt \| grep -o "\\\[[(].\\\[\])][^)\]]$" ... I have no memory of this and no idea what I was trying to do, but I sure hope it worked.

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:05, 15 March 2024
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	==Note on Title Text==		==Note on Title Text==
−	~~{{incomplete\|Does not explain what the code does (but neither does this incompleteness tag. Can you have a reason HOW it does not explain what the code does? Signed, a further editor)}}~~
−	~~The title text when first published was~~

	I searched my .bash_history for the line with the highest ratio of special characters to regular alphanumeric characters, and the winner was: cat out.txt \| grep -o "\\\[[(].\\\[\])][^)\]]$" ... I have no memory of this and no idea what I was trying to do, but I sure hope it worked.		I searched my .bash_history for the line with the highest ratio of special characters to regular alphanumeric characters, and the winner was: cat out.txt \| grep -o "\\\[[(].\\\[\])][^)\]]$" ... I have no memory of this and no idea what I was trying to do, but I sure hope it worked.

@@ Line 35: / Line 35: @@
 **'''Backslash so real it transcends time and space ''': 7 backslashes goes further than escaping the screen as they now {{w|Transcendence (philosophy)|transcends}} both {{w|Spacetime|time and space}}
 **'''Backslash to end all other text''': 8 backslashes would be a triply-escaped backslash (same as 4 backslashes but with an additional escaping layer). It is said to "end all other text", i.e. there should never be any more text if someone uses eight in a row. But there could be more as indicated in the last example.
-**'''The true name of Ba'al, the Soul-Eater''': {{w|Infinity|∞ backslashes}} (11 are shown but followed by "..." to indicate that they continue forever). If you could write an infinite number of backslashes it would actually be ''The true name of {{w|Baal|Ba'al}}, the {{w|Soul eater (folklore)|Soul-Eater}}''. This indicates that if you continue misusing backslashes like this you will end up devoured by a demon, for instance {{w|Beelzebub}}, for being so thoughtless. Ba'al has been mentioned before, in comics 1419 and 1246.
+**'''The true name of Ba'al, the Soul-Eater''': {{w|Infinity|∞ backslashes}} (11 are shown but followed by "..." to indicate that they continue forever). If you could write an infinite number of backslashes it would actually be ''The true name of {{w|Baal|Ba'al}}, the {{w|Soul eater (folklore)|Soul-Eater}}''. This indicates that if you continue misusing backslashes like this you will end up devoured by a demon, for instance {{w|Beelzebub}}, for being so thoughtless... Ba'al has been mentioned before in [[1419: On the Phone]] and in the title text of [[1246: Pale Blue Dot]].
 ===Backslash explosion and alternatives===
 A reasonable example of a backslash explosion would be a {{w|PHP}} script on a web server which writes {{w|JavaScript}} code with a {{w|Regular Expression}} to be run on the client. If the JavaScript code has to test a string to see if ''it'' has a double-backslash, the Regular Expression to do so would be:

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 ==Note on Title Text==
-{{incomplete|Does not explain what the code does}}
+{{incomplete|Does not explain what the code does (but neither does this incompleteness tag. Can you have a reason HOW it does not explain what the code does? Signed, a further editor)}}
 The title text when first published was

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:31, 6 February 2024
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	==Note on Title Text==		==Note on Title Text==
		+	{{incomplete\|Does not explain what the code does}}
	The title text when first published was		The title text when first published was

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-⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀<br>
+{{comic
 | number    = 1638
 | date      = February 3, 2016