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"regexp" entries.

December 30, 2004

Another library in Java for Regular Expressions

Maybe the last, but not the least: the project jrexx – “automaton based regular expression API for Java” and its beautiful jrexx-Lab – “laboratory for regular expression analysis”.

Posted by Jean-Philippe on December 30, 2004 0 Comments, 183 TrackBacks

December 28, 2004

Another regexp tester

Continuation from my previous entry about regular expressions: RegExpEditor from WaterProof, makers of PHPEdit.

Posted by Jean-Philippe on December 28, 2004 0 Comments, 181 TrackBacks

December 23, 2004

Rediscovery of Regular Expressions

This collection of links is brought to you in order to rediscover with me the fabulous world of regular expressions. I am currently using a lot of regexp in the typographic engine I am building. Books by O'Reilly:

Mastering Regular Expressions, Second Edition by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl (official website here): the bible, which I own [buy by Amazon.com];
Regular Expressions Pocket Reference by Tony Stubblebine: the quick reference [buy by Amazon.com].

On Perldoc.com, a huge site with Perl documentation:

references: perlre - Perl regular expressions (the main reference for Perl Regular Expressions) and perlreref - Perl Regular Expressions Reference (a concise reference on Perl RE);
tutorials: perlrequick - Perl regular expressions quick start (a quick start guide for Perl RE) and perlretut - Perl regular expressions tutorial (a long tutorial);
FAQ: perlfaq6 - Regular Expressions;
others: Regexp Quote-Like Operators (about quote-like operators that apply to pattern matching and related activities) and Gory details of parsing quoted constructs (dealing with quoted constructs in Perl).

Websites:

Regular-Expressions.info: a very complete website.
RegExLib.com – Regular Expression Library is a repository of expressions for particular tasks (actually this library is used by many RE tester tools, and RegExLib.com offers its own online RE test tools). Have a look at the excellent collection of RE patterns.

Regular Expressions testing tools:

The Regulator (.NET) – the best I have tested;
Espresso (.NET), introducing article on CodeProject (but talking about the previous version) – not tested yet;
JRegexpTester (Java) – interesting but not the best;
The Regex Coach (Windows and Linux) – tested but not so good;
RegexDesigner.NET (.NET), GotDotNet workspace here – not tested;
Regular Expression Workbench (.NET) – not tested.

Java packages (excepts from regex.info's Links to Java Regex Packages):

Sun java.util.regex (used on the same project as Jakarta Regexp, but Sun implementation was limited);
Jakarta Apache ORO (only used once);
Jakarta Apache Regexp (the one I currently use);
XML Apache Xerces org.apache.xerces.utils.regex (never used) – IBM com.ibm.regex aka Regex4J is not available anymore;
JRegex (never used but seems to be worth it);
gnu.regexp (used once on the same project as Jakarta Regexp, but there was a problem with this GNU package that I have not met in the Jakarta one);
com.stevesoft.pat (never used).

PHP can use Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE).

More: the e-x-c-e-l-l-e-n-t article Marshall McLuhan vs. Marshalling Regular Expressions by Andy Oram.

“Regular expressions extend the reach of text, and therefore inexorably change how we sense the text.”