Which regular expression libraries should be used in Common Lisp?

Question

I am trying to learn Common Lisp and want to use regular expressions to parse a text file. Which library is the easiest to use for a beginner like me? Am I right in thinking that it depends on which implementation of Common Lisp I use? I see some encouraging results from Google, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to see if I could get good advice from Lispers. Thank you

Answer 1

For beginners, just use the CL-PPCRE . It is fast, reliable and stable, and works great with any implementation.

There's also a little trick to make working with it more enjoyable - adding a RE alias in addition to PPCRE .

 (rename-package "CL-PPCRE" "CL-PPCRE" '("PPCRE" "RE")) 

So, you can use it as follows: (re:scan ...