Honestly, I find Regex a nightmare mainly due to the variety of engines available to Regex. However, knowing the engine and flavor names of a particular application helps me figure out what syntax I must follow.
For instance, Visual Studio uses the .NET engine. What is the name of vim's regex engine?
edit: As #Matt and #phd explained, flavor != engine. Vim has its own engine, but it has four flavors: nomagic, magic, very nomagic, very magic.
Well, I'm not an expert in this topic, but i think my research can be helpful.
What I have found so far is that Vim has it's own RegEx engine and this topic
can be informative for you, because there are some explanations to why Vim has it's own engine.
Also on this wiki page you can find what features are supported in Vim.
Hope that I could help you a bit.
Link to Answer from another question
In the link above there is a regex construct I am trying to figure out what the -f in it is doing. Appreciate your help.
Also, where can I find other regex parameters and other tutorial about regex. Any links please.
Thanks for reading and responding.
If you are just interested in learning Regex in Powershell, lookup Mastering Powershell, and navigate to Chapter 14, Text and Regular Expressions. It's sorta bare bones, but it's a start.
there are 3 Regex Languages (An more I am not thinking of), and they are: PCRE/Javascript/Python. They regexs vary depending on which "Flavor" you use.
I suggest starting out by learning PCRE, because it is a very strong Flavor of Regex.
Here are some nice tutorials:
http://regex.learncodethehardway.org/book/
http://regexcrossword.com/
Unfortunately, the regex section of many manuals starts with a tutorial, and often leaves this question unanswered. If the answer for the package that brought you to this page is not below, please add it, in a direct and short format, with links if applicable.
PHP Regex flavors
1.) PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions)
preg* functions
PHP: PCRE - Manual, PCRE man pages, perlre
2.) POSIX ERE (Extended Regular Expressions)
ereg* functions -> DEPRECATED
PHP: ereg - Manual, man pages
3.) POSIX ERE with multibyte support
mb_ereg* functions
PHP: mb_ereg - Manual
Feel free to add further information.
Kate, and thus Kile, use the QRegExp class, which is PCRE-like, but not quite PCRE.
Nginx uses PCRE. For more information, see here.
Jedit uses java.util.regex from 4.3, and gnu.regexp before that.
I've been having a need to do a lot of regex / pattern-matching stuff lately and, in looking at different examples / forum posts from my web searches it seems people sometimes mention that perl has good modules to help in simplifying pattern matching / regex tasks, however they neglect to mention which ones are the best for this.. I have looked at CPAN for this but their site isn't very easy to navigate as I can't seem to search effectively by category.. any advice is appreciated.
Take a look at Regexp::Common
Also, look at YAPE::Regex::Explain and the web front end to it. Invaluable.
Might I suggest the perl6-esque Regexp::Grammars if you're doing anything really complex and need to write a grammar -- it is really awesome. I just used it to parse a few SQL commands for my perl postgresql shell: pgperlshell
A lot of the power of regular expressions is available natively in perl. Probably the best way for you to simplify your understanding of perl regular expressions is to read the excellent perl regex tutorial at http://perldoc.perl.org/perlretut.html
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How can I test the same regex against different regular expression engines?
The most powerful free online regexp testing tool is by far http://regex101.com/ - lets you select the RE engine (PCRE, JavaScript, Python), has a debugger, colorizes the matches, explains the regexp on the fly, can create permalinks to the regex playground.
Other online tools:
http://www.rexv.org/ - supports PHP and Perl PCRE, Posix, Python, JavaScript, and Node.js
http://refiddle.com/ - Inspired by jsfiddle, but for regular expressions. Supports JavaScript, Ruby and .NET expressions.
http://regexpal.com/ - powered by the XRegExp JavaScript library
http://www.rubular.com/ - Ruby-based
Perl Regex Tutor - uses PCRE
Windows desktop tools:
The Regex Coach - free Windows application
RegexBuddy recommended by most, costs US$ 39.95
Jeff Atwood [wrote about regular expressions]( post:).
Other tools recommended by SO users include:
http://www.txt2re.com/ Online free tool to generate regular expressions for multiple language (#palmsey another thread)
The Added Bytes Regular Expressions Cheat Sheet (#GateKiller another thread)
http://regexhero.net/ - The Online .NET Regular Expression Tester. Not free.
RegexBuddy
I use Expresso (www.ultrapico.com). It has a lot of nice features for the developer. The Regulator used to be my favorite, but it hasn't been updated in so long and I constantly ran into crashes with complicated RegExs.
Here are some for the Mac: (Note: don't judge the tools by their websites)
RegExhibit - My Favorite, powerful and easy
Reggy - Simple and Clean
RegexWidget - A Dashboard Widget for quick testing
If you are an Emacs user, the command re-builder lets you type an Emacs regex and shows on the fly the matching strings in the current buffer, with colors to mark groups. It's free as Emacs.
Rubular is free, easy to use and looks nice.
RegexBuddy is a weapon of choice
I use the excellent and free Rad Software Regular Expression Designer.
If you just want to write a regular expression, have a little help with the syntax and test the RE's matching and replacing then this fairly light-footprint tool is ideal.
couple of eclipse plugins for those using eclipse,
http://www.brosinski.com/regex/
http://www.bastian-bergerhoff.com/eclipse/features/web/QuickREx/toc.html
Kodos of course. Cause it's Pythonic. ;)
RegexBuddy is great!!!
I agree on RegExBuddy, but if you want free or when I'm working somewhere and not on my own system RegExr is a great online (Flash) tool that has lots of pre-built regex segments to work with and does real-time pattern matching for your testing.
In the standard Python installation there is a "Tools/scripts" directory containing redemo.py.
This creates an interactive Tkinter window in which you can experiment with regexs.
In the past I preferred The Regex Coach for its simplistic layout, instantaneous highlighting and its price (free).
Every once in awhile though I run into an issue with it when trying to test .NET regular expressions. For that, it turns out, it's better to use a tool that actually uses the .NET regular expression engine. That was my whole reason to build Regex Hero last year. It runs in Silverlight, and as such, runs off of the .NET Regex Class library directly.
Regexbuddy does all this. http://www.regexbuddy.com/
see the accepted answer to this question: Learning Regular Expressions
I'll add to the vote of Reggy for the Mac, gonna try out some of the other ones that Joseph suggested and upvote that post tomorrow when my limit gets reset.
for online: http://regexpal.com/
for desktop: The Regex Coach
+1 For Regex Coach here. Free and does the job really well.
http://www.weitz.de/regex-coach/
I am still a big The Regulator fan.
There are some stability problems but these can be fixed by disableing the Intellisense. It gets mad with some expressions and typos in building an expression.
Would love it if Roy Osherove updated, but looks like he is busy with other things.
I like to use this online one:
http://www.cuneytyilmaz.com/prog/jrx/
Of course, it'll be javascript regexp, but I've never yet done anything clever enough to notice the difference.
How much is your time worth? Pay the $40 and get RegexBuddy. I did, and I even upgraded from 2.x version to 3.x. It has paid for itself many times over.
I personally like the Regular Expression Tester.
It's a free firefox plugin, so always on!
Also this regex plugin can be useful for eclipse and idea users.
I like http://regexhero.net/tester/ a lot
Check out Regex Master which is free and open source regular expression tester
This regex tester able to test javascript, php and python
http://www.piliapp.com/regex-tester/
RegExBuddy so far I concur with and endorse.
RegExr for testing with the Actionscript 3 (whichever standard that may be)
http://rgx-extract-replace.appspot.com
has the functionality to enlist the captured regex groups formatted in columns and
optionally can replace the matched patterns in the input text.