Chad Osgood's Blog

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Interactive regular expression constructors

I love regular expressions. Any tool that helps me more interactively construct my expressions is a Good Thing indeed. I thought I'd list some of the tools I use for those that might not yet be aware. Note that these tools don't attempt to help teach your regular expressions; however, they could almost certainly help in the learning process.

All the tools below support what I consider core features: the ability to specify match options, the ability to perform a match or a replace, and the ability to display matched groups in the results. Each respective tool has its pros/cons, and each has some very creative features. Rather than provide a breakdown of the features for each, I suggest you try each independently and decide which works best for you.

Chris Sells' RegexDesigner.NET (Source code)

Darren Neimke's RegexSnippets (Source code)

ActiveState's Komodo (an IDE, but a great regex toolkit is included)

The Regex Coach (Tim Tabor posted this in the Win Tech: Off Topic list today)

All of the tools are free with the exception of Komodo. If anyone is aware of any other tools similar to the above, please let me know.

Comments

Roy Osherove said:

Expresso?
http://www12.brinkster.com/ultrapico/Expresso.htm
# June 20, 2003 2:19 AM

Darren Neimke said:

Thanks for the plug Chad :-) I should mention that you were extremely helpful to me while I was developing it :-)
# June 20, 2003 4:40 AM

Nauman Leghari said:

There are some other Regex tools mentioned in the following posts.

http://aspnetweblog.com/posts/2531.aspx
http://weblogs.asp.net/DNeimke/archive/02042003.aspx
# June 20, 2003 12:01 PM

Steven Smith said:

Don't forget the regular expression library - why build it if someone else already has?

http://www.regexlib.com/

Steve
# June 20, 2003 12:47 PM

Chris Frazier said:

"I love regular expressions"---> my God, you're a geek:P
# June 24, 2003 5:40 PM

Chad Osgood said:

Thanks! :-)
# June 24, 2003 5:54 PM

TrackBack said:

^_^,Pretty Good!
# April 10, 2005 3:54 AM

sha said:

Thanks Chad, for these tools. Really cool!!!! Regex-coach is superb.

# April 13, 2008 3:22 AM
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