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Improve usability of regexp and other functions #1446
Description
Is your feature request related to a problem or challenge? Please describe what you are trying to do.
In functions like regexp_count we have definition like this:
def regexp_count(
string: Expr, pattern: Expr, start: Expr | None = None, flags: Expr | None = None
) -> Expr:It is a common pattern that the pattern is a string, the start is an integer, and flags is a string (or single character).
It would be more pythonic if we can just pass those values without wrapping them in a lit() call.
Describe the solution you'd like
Review the regexp functions in the function library and find other common patterns.
For each allow users to not have to specify a Expr. We do this in other places in the code, so a pattern is already established.
Activity
ntjohnson1 commentedon Apr 8, 2026
I came here to post about this as well. I think a good check on this is the ability to remove
litfrom all (or nearly all) doctest examples.Hit this recently around a bunch of string functions.
strpos,array_to_stringetcrenato2099 commentedon Apr 13, 2026
Hi @timsaucer @ntjohnson1 , I took a stab at this over in #1493 , if you think it is in the right direction, I can expand that to other functions. The current change is only on the python side since there is no "real" problem in the rust side as far as I see .
Anyway, let me know what you guys think. Thanks!