RegexBuddy
RegexBuddy is a regular expression tool by Just Great Software Co. Ltd. for the Microsoft Windows operating system. It provides an interface for building, testing, and debugging regular expressions, in addition to a library of commonly used regular expressions, an interface for generating code to use regexes in the desired programming environment, a graphical grep tool for searching through files and directories, and an integrated forum for seeking and providing regular expression advice with other RegexBuddy users.
RegexBuddy's proprietary regular expression engine allows the software to emulate the rules and limitations of numerous popular regular expression flavors.
Supported regular expression flavors
15 regular expression flavors are supported as of RegexBuddy 3.1.
- JGsoft
- A proprietary engine developed by the company that produces RegexBuddy. The JGsoft flavor is designed as a fusion flavor, and hence supports most syntax from other popular flavors.
- .NET
- The System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex class in the .NET Framework, used by programming languages such as C# and Visual Basic .NET.
- Java
- The regex flavor of the
java.util.regex package, available in the JDK 1.4 and later.
- Perl
- The regex flavor used in the Perl programming language version 5.8.
- PCRE
- Version 6 of Philip Hazel's open source Perl Compatible Regular Expressions library, used by PHP/preg and REALbasic.
- JavaScript
- The regex syntax defined in the 3rd edition of ECMA-262, which standardizes JavaScript.
- Python
- The regex flavor supported by Python's built-in re module.
- Ruby
- The regex flavor built into the Ruby programming language.
- Tcl ARE
- The Tcl Advanced Regular Expressions flavor.
- POSIX BRE
- POSIX Basic Regular Expressions, defined in the IEEE POSIX regular expression standard.
- POSIX ERE
- POSIX Extended Regular Expressions, defined in the IEEE POSIX regular expression standard.
- GNU BRE
- The POSIX BRE flavor with GNU extensions. Used by the GNU implementations of traditional UNIX commands like grep, sed, and awk.
- GNU ERE
- The POSIX ERE flavor with GNU extensions. Used by the GNU implementations of traditional UNIX commands like grep, sed, and awk.
- XML Schema
- The regex flavor defined in the W3C XML Schema standard.
- XPath
- The regex flavor defined in the W3C XPath standard; used in XPath 2.0, XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0.
RegexBuddy allows generating code for a further extended number of environments, based on the above flavors.
Emulation limitations
Updates for RegexBuddy have frequently refined the emulation of existing regex flavors, as well as occasionally adding support for additional flavors. However, there are several notable limitations as of RegexBuddy 3.3.
- .NET: Balancing groups are not supported.
- Java: Character class set operations are not supported.
- PCRE: Recursion is not supported; nor are features added in PCRE 7.
- Perl: Features added in Perl 5.10 are not supported.
- POSIX/GNU: The longest-leftmost alternation prioritization is not supported.
Additionally, flavor-specific modifiers, embedded code, and callouts are not supported.
Supported modifiers
- Dot matches newline (aka single-line mode, commonly implemented as
/s).
- Case insensitive (aka ignore case mode, commonly implemented as
/i).
- ^$ match at line breaks (aka multi-line mode, commonly implemented as
/m).
- Free-spacing (aka extended or free-spacing and comments mode, commonly implemented as
/x).
In cases where the selected flavor does not support one or more of the above modifiers, the option is disabled.
Versions
- RegexBuddy 1.0 — Released May 3, 2004 — Initial version based on the PCRE library
- RegexBuddy 2.0 — Released January 25, 2005 — Added the regular expression debugger, grep functionality, and the new JGsoft regex engine
- RegexBuddy 3.0 — Released June 13, 2007 — Introduced multi-flavor support (with 12 flavors; expanded in later releases) and the integrated forum
References
- ^ "About Just Great Software". http://www.just-great-software.com/aboutjg.html.
- ^ "RegexBuddy Version History". http://www.regexbuddy.com/history.html.
- ^ http://wiki.winehq.org/AppsThatSupportWine
External links