[xquery-talk] Regular Expression search

[Jason Hunter]

John Snelson wrote:

> Hi Martin,
> 
> I've used the MarkLogic database. However, the custom ctd:contains() 
> function is not quite the same as the full regular expressions accepted 
> by fn:matches(), is it?

You've got it, because regular expressions are flat character oriented 
while cts:contains() and the cts:* functions are token oriented.

> Does MarkLogic use it's indexes to optimise fn:matches()?

To the degree it can, but complicated regexps don't lend themselves to 
general index optimization.

-jh-