this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
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Regex
Edit: to everyone who responded, I use regex infrequently enough that the knowledge never really crystalizes. By the time I need it for this one thing again, I haven't touched it in like a year.
You get used to it, I don't even see the code—I just see: group... pattern... read-ahead...
Most of regex is pretty basic and easy to learn, it's the look ahead and look behind that are the killers imo
(?=)for positive lookahead and(?!)for negative lookahead. Stick a<in the middle for lookbehind.You always forget regex syntax?
I've always found it simple to understand and remember. Even over many years and decades, I've never had issues reading or writing simple regex syntax (excluding the flags and shorthands) even after long regex breaks.
It's not about the syntax itself, it's about which syntax to use. There are different ones and remembering which one is for which language is tough.
This is exactly it. Regex is super simple. The difficulty is maintaining a mental mapping between language/util <-> regex engine <-> engine syntax & character class names. It gets worse when utils also conditionally enable extended syntaxes with flags or options.
The hardest part is remembering whether you need to use
\wor[:alnum:].Way too few utils actually mention which syntax they use too. Most just say something accepts a "regular expression", which is totally ambiguous.
This is exactly it. Regex is super simple. The difficulty is maintaining a mental mapping between language/util <-> regex engine <-> engine syntax & character class names. It gets worse when utils also conditionally enable extended syntaxes with flags or options.
The hardest part is remembering whether you need to use
\wor[:alnum:].Way too few utils actually mention which syntax they use too. Most just say something accepts a "regular expression", which is totally ambiguous.
This is exactly it. Regex is super simple. The difficulty is maintaining a mental mapping between language/util <-> regex engine <-> engine syntax & character class names. It gets worse when utils also conditionally enable extended syntaxes with flags or options.
The hardest part is remembering whether you need to use
\wor[:alnum:].Way too few utils actually mention which syntax they use too. Most just say something accepts a "regular expression", which is totally ambiguous.
This is exactly it. Regex is super simple. The difficulty is maintaining a mental mapping between language/util <-> regex engine <-> engine syntax & character class names. It gets worse when utils also conditionally enable extended syntaxes with flags or options.
The hardest part is remembering whether you need to use
\wor[:alnum:].Way too few utils actually mention which syntax they use too. Most just say something accepts a "regular expression", which is totally ambiguous.
I give you that, true. I wish vim had PCRE
There is the "very magic" mode for vim regexes. It's not the exact PCRE syntax, but it's pretty close. You only need to add \v before the expression to use it. There is no permanent mode / option though. (I think you can remap the commands, like / to /\v)
https://regex101.com/
Don't let the gatekeepers keep you out. This site helps.
Nice! This is the one I use: https://regexr.com/
Though it appears to be very similar on the face of it.
Chatgpt helps even more
I know that LLMs are probably very helpful for people who are just getting started, but you will never understand it if you can't grasp the fundamentals. Don't let "AI" make you lazy. If you do use LLMs make sure you understand the output it's giving you enough to replicate it yourself.
This may not be applicable to you specifically, but I think this is nice info to have here for others.
I have no interest in learning regex ever in my life, I have better things to dedicate my brain capacity to haha
twitch
This is one of the best uses for LLM’s imo. They do all my regex for me.
No. Learn it properly once and you're good. Also it's super handy in vim.
interns gonna intern
I just use the regex101 site. I don't need anything too complicated ever. Has all the common syntax and shows matches as you type. Supports the different languages and globals.
For me I spent one hour of ADHD hyper focusing to get the gist of regex. Python.org has good documentation. It’s been like 2 years so I’ve forgotten it too lol.