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Essential Guide To Regular Expressions: Tools and Tutorials

smashingmagazine.com — Regular expressions are something that you'll come across at least once in your development cycle. Here are some resources to get you well on your way to mastering regex.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jun 2, 2009

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  • keyo, on 06/02/2009, -1/+20http://xkcd.com/208/
  • Grazfather, on 06/02/2009, -0/+14Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I’ll use regular expressions.” Now they have two problems
    - Jamie Zawinski

    But I actually really like RE.
  • commentbot, on 06/02/2009, -1/+13http://www.regular-expressions.info/
  • PedleZelnip, on 06/02/2009, -0/+6Y'know what's sad is that even before clicking the link I knew what XKCD comic that would be.
  • JQP123, on 06/02/2009, -0/+6Regular expressions are kinda like C macros --- a little is OK, a lot can be a nightmare --- particularly for the next guy who has to try and decipher and debug your code..
  • McReynolds, on 06/02/2009, -0/+5I have to re-learn them everytime I need to use them. Now I will add this as mega bookmark to my other regex bookmarks.
  • bdbr, on 06/02/2009, -0/+4If you find yourself having to use Windows, you don't have to live without regular expressions. Get UnxUtils from Sourceforge, and you get a whole slew of unix-like commands for Win32 (including egrep). There are also Win32 file renaming programs that use regular expressions. Google will find these easily enough (I'd be happy to include URLs but then I'd just be accused of spamming).
  • McReynolds, on 06/02/2009, -0/+4Always comment your regexps, because unless they are all you do even you may not understand what you did the day before.
  • PedleZelnip, on 06/02/2009, -0/+2Kinda related to this, but this was one of the things I liked about python -- you could name the parenthesis matches. So like in Perl you'd do something like

    if (/(someregexphere)/)
    do something with $1

    In Python you could actually name that text that was matched so instead of $1 you could use a meaningful variable name. Made the code MUCH more readable and maintainable.
  • dougle, on 06/02/2009, -0/+2Tip for php: preg_ is on average 7 times quicker than ereg_
  • Simo, on 06/02/2009, -0/+2buzzzz. Deviation
  • 0tis, on 06/02/2009, -0/+1Actually, I didn't even realise it but I may have been waiting for this for the last week (been stuck on something). Thanks!
  • keyo, on 06/02/2009, -0/+1Haha, been there.
  • shawncplus, on 06/03/2009, -0/+1You can name matching groups if the engine is PCRE by using (?<name>someregex)
  • offrdbandit, on 06/02/2009, -1/+2Nothing is more ironic than sitting in a formal languages class being taught by a professor with an accent so strong you can't understand what he is saying.
  • Subduction, on 06/02/2009, -1/+2Regular expressions are things that other people learn so that I may hire them on Craig's List.
  • dougle, on 06/02/2009, -0/+1my prof had a speech impediment. Wegular Expwesions
  • PedleZelnip, on 06/02/2009, -1/+2File this under Practical Regular Expressions (it's my motto for my Xbox Live gamertag):

    3?(1|L)33+(7|T)
  • gamepr0, on 06/02/2009, -0/+1Thanks, let's hope i remember that for when i need it again :D
  • bmcnally, on 06/02/2009, -3/+3Wow, something useful on Digg to start off my morning.
    It's either going to be a great day, or the last day of life as we know it.
    Or both.
  • tlarkin, on 06/02/2009, -1/+1This is great. I am a Unix/OS X administrator and my shell scripting skills are somewhat novice at times. I can get along with a lot of stuff but when I have to sift through several terra bytes of home directories looking for certain file types I tried using the find command with regex in the past. Got it working in the end but took me a while to grasp expressions.

    book marked for later usage, and dugg
  • catapultic, on 06/02/2009, -4/+1So, you have a problem, and you've decided to use Regular Expressions.

    Now you have two problems.
  • amworld, on 06/02/2009, -5/+1Good list compilation. Even search engine does not throw such list.
  • diggopolous, on 06/02/2009, -8/+1Here's a regular expresssion: STFU

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