RegexBuddy

{{ Infobox Software | name = RegexBuddy | screenshot = | caption = RegexBuddy 3.0.5 in Side by Side Layout mode, running on Windows Vista | developer = Just Great Software | latest release version = 3.1.0 | latest release date = 20 December 2007 | operating system = Microsoft Windows | genre = Regular expression tool | license = Proprietary | website = Official website }}

RegexBuddy is a regular expression tool by Just Great Software for the Microsoft Windows operating system. It provides an interface for easily 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, also used in EditPad Pro, PowerGREP, and AceText. 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 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

New versions of RegexBuddy have frequently added support for additional regex flavors and refined the emulation of existing flavors. However, there are several notable limitations as of RegexBuddy 3.1.

• .NET: Balancing groups are not supported.
• Java: Character class set operations are not supported.
• PCRE: Recursion is not supported.
• POSIX/GNU: The longest-leftmost alternation prioritization is not supported.

Additionally, flavor-specific modifiers as well as 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.

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