I hate RegEx

[Mashiane]

Ola

iHateRegex — Understand, test, and share regex

A modern regular expression playground with live matching, visual railroad diagrams, rich notes, and easy sharing.

ihateregex.io

I think this is one of the areas in my coding world that I have not mastered.

Rather cool:

RegExr: Learn, Build, & Test RegEx

RegExr is an online tool to learn, build, & test Regular Expressions (RegEx / RegExp).

regexr.com

Online Regex tester and visualizer - Python, PHP, Ruby, JavaScript, Java, MySQL

Online regular expression tester for Python, PHP, Ruby, JS, Java and MySQL. Regex visualizer. Syntax highlighting. Cheatsheet. Generate string corresponding to a regex.

extendsclass.com

 

[Alexander Stolte]

very nice links.

I hate regex too, because i don't know how to get to the goal, or it never works the way i want it to

 

[emexes]

Similar and also cool:

regex101: build, test, and debug regex

regexper.com: regex railroad diagram

 

[agraham]

I've never managed to get my head around regex - my mind seems not to be built for it.

The bible on regex, including how they are implemented is

Mastering Regular Expression 3rd Edition by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl. ISBN: 978-0596528126

I've started reading it several times but it's never really 'clicked' properly.

 

[ilan]

another amazing found of you. put it to the "A Must Collection for any Dev" List.

 

[tufanv]

regex is like Chinese to me. I never wanted to learn it.

 

[Sandman]

RegEx is great. ?

 

[aeric]

One doesn’t need to like it. Just Google search how to use it. ?

 

[ilan]

regex is like Chinese to me. I never wanted to learn it.

once you learn it (will take you maybe 20 minutes) you will love it.

 

[agraham]

will take you maybe 20 minutes

No it won't for some people. I've tried on and off for years but the understanding never comes. I can manage complex logic but I could never 'see' regexes, though I know some people can use them apparently intuitively.

 

[ilan]

No it won't for some people. I've tried on and off for years but the understanding never comes. I can manage complex logic but I could never 'see' regexes, though I know some people can use them apparently intuitively.

have a look at this guy and maybe your opinion will change

 

[Peter Simpson]

I think this is one of the areas in my coding world that I have not mastered.

SNAP, I totally agree.

Most of the time when I know that the best solution for filtering/checking text is to use RegEx, the first thing I do is to check big brother G to see if the expression that I need is already out there. If I sadly can't find the Regular Expression that I'm looking for, I then do one of two things to help me create it.

• Use one of the many free website to help me create/test my butchered RegEx
• Or I use one of the many free Android apps on the play store to help me create/test my butchered RegEx

Either way it's usually a butchered expression that works. In the past I've spent an hour or two creating and testing an extremely simple RegEx as my mind has huge problems when it comes to Regular Expressions

 

[TILogistic]

I just have to say that I have used it for many years in different application development languages and it is really useful if you want to do complex validations.

and in database it is very useful to use.

sample:

Oracle / PLSQL: REGEXP_LIKE Condition

This Oracle tutorial explains how to use the Oracle REGEXP_LIKE condition (to perform regular expression matching) with syntax and examples. * Not to be confused with the LIKE condition which performs simple pattern matching.

www.techonthenet.com

and unix / linux

Sample AWK.

AWK - Regular Expressions

AWK is very powerful and efficient in handling regular expressions. A number of complex tasks can be solved with simple regular expressions. Any command-line expert knows the power of regular expressions.

www.tutorialspoint.com

 

[agraham]

There is no doubting the power of regex, if you can exploit it but it seems to be a bit like parallel processing or threading. I can intuitively "see" both of those but I know some people who can't, whereas I can't "see" regexes.

 

[Hamied Abou Hulaikah]

REGEX makes me nervous as Mr. @Peter Simpson animated footer fly

 

[Mashiane]

have a look at this guy and maybe your opinion will change

Cant we just write RegEx in our native languages. "In this word find x then replace with y, after you check if the sentence has numbers.... ?" LOL

 

[Sandman]

Cant we just write RegEx in our native languages. "In this word find x then replace with y, after you check if the sentence has numbers.... ?" LOL

It's a fair question, and these easy-to-understand documents and links will discuss this in simple terms that everybody can easily understand after a quick read*:

”Generating Regular Expressions from Natural Language Specifications: Are We There Yet?”

http://taoxie.cs.illinois.edu/publications/nl4se18-regex.pdf

”SoftRegex: Generating Regex from Natural Language Descriptions using Softened Regex Equivalence”

https://aclanthology.org/D19-1677.pdf

”Is there a regular language to represent regular expressions?”

Is there a regular language to represent regular expressions?

Specifically, I noticed that the language of regular expressions itself isn't regular. So, I can't use a regular expression to parse a given regular expression. I need to use a parser since the lan...

stackoverflow.com

This might actually be helpful to you, going the other direction:

RegExTranslator: You're a RegExpert now

You can use RegExTranslator.com to decode a regular expression into English or to write your own regular expression with Simple Regex Language. We also include common patterns like regex for phone numbers, regex for email addresses, and general pattern matching. You can even create and store...

www.regextranslator.com

* Joke

 

[aeric]

It's a fair question, and these easy-to-understand documents and links will discuss this in simple terms that everybody can easily understand after a quick read*:

”Generating Regular Expressions from Natural Language Specifications: Are We There Yet?”

http://taoxie.cs.illinois.edu/publications/nl4se18-regex.pdf

”SoftRegex: Generating Regex from Natural Language Descriptions using Softened Regex Equivalence”

https://aclanthology.org/D19-1677.pdf

”Is there a regular language to represent regular expressions?”

Is there a regular language to represent regular expressions?

Specifically, I noticed that the language of regular expressions itself isn't regular. So, I can't use a regular expression to parse a given regular expression. I need to use a parser since the lan...

stackoverflow.com

This might actually be helpful to you, going the other direction:

RegExTranslator: You're a RegExpert now

You can use RegExTranslator.com to decode a regular expression into English or to write your own regular expression with Simple Regex Language. We also include common patterns like regex for phone numbers, regex for email addresses, and general pattern matching. You can even create and store...

www.regextranslator.com

* Joke

If I could understand the above, I can go for a doctorate study. ?

 

[Deleted member 103]

I love Regex as much as I love C++ ?

 

[AnandGupta]

Looks like I am minority here.

I use regex to find and replace in my text editor UltraEdit and also use TextCrawler (older version) to fine tune my regular expression.
Now we have tons of online options too to help in getting the right regular expression.