RegexBuddy
Encyclopedia
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.
JGsoft
.NET
Java
Perl
PCRE
JavaScript
Python
Ruby
Tcl ARE
POSIX BRE
POSIX ERE
GNU BRE
GNU ERE
XML Schema
XPath
RegexBuddy allows generating code for a further extended number of environments, based on the above flavors.
Additionally, flavor-specific modifiers, embedded code, and callouts are not supported.
In cases where the selected flavor does not support one or more of the above modifiers, the option is disabled.
Regular expression
In computing, a regular expression provides a concise and flexible means for "matching" strings of text, such as particular characters, words, or patterns of characters. Abbreviations for "regular expression" include "regex" and "regexp"...
tool by Just Great Software Co. Ltd. for the Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
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
Grep
grep is a command-line text-search utility originally written for Unix. The name comes from the ed command g/re/p...
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.NET FrameworkThe .NET Framework is a software framework that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large library and supports several programming languages which allows language interoperability...
, used by programming languages such as C# and Visual Basic .NETVisual Basic .NETVisual Basic .NET , is an object-oriented computer programming language that can be viewed as an evolution of the classic Visual Basic , which is implemented on the .NET Framework...
.
Java
- The regex flavor of the package, available in the JDKJava Development KitThe Java Development Kit is an Oracle Corporation product aimed at Java developers. Since the introduction of Java, it has been by far the most widely used Java SDK. On 17 November 2006, Sun announced that it would be released under the GNU General Public License , thus making it free software...
1.4 and later.
Perl
- The regex flavor used in the PerlPerlPerl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
programming language version 5.8.
PCRE
- Version 6 of Philip Hazel's open source Perl Compatible Regular Expressions library, used by PHPPHPPHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
/preg and REALbasicREALbasicRealbasic is the object-oriented dialect of the BASIC programming language used in Real Studio, a programming environment, developed and commercially marketed by Real Software, Inc of Austin, Texas for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, 32-bit x86 Linux and the web.- Language features :RB is a strongly...
.
JavaScript
- The regex syntax defined in the 3rd edition of ECMA-262ECMAScriptECMAScript is the scripting language standardized by Ecma International in the ECMA-262 specification and ISO/IEC 16262. The language is widely used for client-side scripting on the web, in the form of several well-known dialects such as JavaScript, JScript, and ActionScript.- History :JavaScript...
, which standardizes JavaScript.
Python
- The regex flavor supported by Python'sPython (programming language)Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
built-in re module.
Ruby
- The regex flavor built into the RubyRuby (programming language)Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general-purpose object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk-like features. Ruby originated in Japan during the mid-1990s and was first developed and designed by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto...
programming language.
Tcl ARE
- The TclTclTcl is a scripting language created by John Ousterhout. Originally "born out of frustration", according to the author, with programmers devising their own languages intended to be embedded into applications, Tcl gained acceptance on its own...
Advanced Regular Expressions flavor.
POSIX BRE
- POSIXPOSIXPOSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...
Basic Regular Expressions, defined in the IEEEInstitute of Electrical and Electronics EngineersThe Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is a non-profit professional association headquartered in New York City that is dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence...
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 GNUGNUGNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system"...
extensions. Used by the GNU implementations of traditional UNIX commands like grepGrepgrep is a command-line text-search utility originally written for Unix. The name comes from the ed command g/re/p...
, sedSedsed is a Unix utility that parses text and implements a programming language which can apply transformations to such text. It reads input line by line , applying the operation which has been specified via the command line , and then outputs the line. It was developed from 1973 to 1974 as a Unix...
, 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 XPathXPathXPath is a language for selecting nodes from an XML document. In addition, XPath may be used to compute values from the content of an XML document...
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
Alternative software
External links
- Official RegexBuddy website
- Regular-Expressions.info — Regex tutorial and reference built from the RegexBuddy help files
- Regex flavor comparison — Although not officially stated, this list shows flavor-specific syntax and behavior supported by RegexBuddy