RegExp precompile handling

[MrCreatoR <mscreator@…>]

It is not a secret that the use of regular expressions is divided into two phases:

• Expression precompilation;
• Execution of compiled expression with target text

Each of these phases takes precious time (processor ticks)... when dealing with large texts, compilation time is unimportant, but for short lines this time greatly exceeds the execution time, and any kind of regular expression optimization will not help here... the situation is exacerbated for the case when one expression is used in the cycle loop (for example, an array of lines) - each call leads to unnecessary recompilation of the same expression.
Hence the need for a function to pre-compile the expression in the handle, which can then be applied to StringRegExp/StringRegExpReplace on a par with the very expression, most likely it will require a steam function to close the handle / free memory.

Following the ​PCRE man page, the engine supports this possibility.

Thanks.

[J-Paul Mesnage]

I leave to Jon the decision to add or not to add such feature as he is the owner of RegExp... stuff

[MrCreatoR <mscreator@…>]

Any progress on this issue?
After an year...