Regular expressions are the secret weapon for searching, validating, and transforming text across almost every programming language. From quick data validation to massive log parsing, regex can save ...

Regular expressions give Tim Patrick the creeps, but he overcame his fears by discovering specially crafted regex patterns can access data in a way that’s actually kind of cool. I've always been ...

I was involved in a recent discussion on the "best" way to remove a given parameter from a URL string. The conversation began with using string primitives to split and join the parameter, a method ...

Regular expressions are a universal tool for matching, validating, and transforming text across programming languages and command-line tools. They can condense complex string operations into compact, ...

XML has become the standard technology in information exchange, but many applications still use more primitive ways to import and export data. One such technique is based on text files containing ...

The first time I ever encountered a regular expression was many years ago now, but I still remember my first thoughts on it: What is this string-like thing? I don’t want to touch it, it looks scary. I ...

A regex construct, specified as a backslash character () followed by a digit character denoting a capturing group number, that recalls a capturing group’s captured text characters.

Regular expressions — the things you feed to programs like grep — are a bit like riding a bike. It seems impossible until you learn to do it, and then it’s easy. Part of their bad reputation is ...

Mark Gibbs is very impressed with a service that generates code for regular expressions and he has found that Gmail now supports importing and exporting filters. His happiness knows no bounds. Before ...