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This is the best RegEx web-site that I have seen. It is actually quite far ahead of everyone else. Unfortunately if you don't "understand" RegEx it won't help

This is the best RegEx web-site that I have seen. It is actually quite far ahead of everyone else. Unfortunately if you don't "understand" RegEx it won't help much. It is more for people who already have it down. For me I am still stuck in copy/paste land. I could never get my head around the "logic" of RegEx, it just seems completely random and arbitrary. Plus they re-use the same characters but have multiple meanings (e.g. ^ for NOT and for START).

kgen 14y ago
I once wrote a website (http://regexone.com http://regexone.com) to help people learn regular expressions using practical examples -- maybe you would like to give that a try and see if it helps you in understanding the different regexes a bit more?
- heywire 14y ago
  Thanks for the link, this looks very helpful!
- UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
  Holy shit, that is amazing. I'm currently working my way through it. I feel more confident already. Seriously thank you.
- dancesdrunk 14y ago
  Used your site a few months ago and have been recommending it to everyone since! Can I make a request for "best Solutions" & possibly more exercises? Its been the best resource I've found for getting the basics down, thanks!
- Jam0864 14y ago
  This is an amazing website, cheers!
- zaptheimpaler 14y ago
  I just went through all the examples, that was awesome! Best tutorial I've seen yet. With this and debuggex, I should be all set to parse HTML with regexes (kidding). By the way, could someone explain this to me - do regexes match a string if a part of a string matches the regex, or if the whole string does? For example, this regex "([+|-]* )(\d+[,|.]* )(\d+)(\.)?(e)?(\d+)" (intended to match decimal/scientific numbers - see http://regexone.com/example/0 http://regexone.com/example/0) matches "720p" on regexone, but fails to match on debuggex. So it seems like it varies depending on some configuration - is that right?
  - archangel_one 14y ago
    That regex doesn't match 720p on regexone (and shouldn't - it has required spaces in it). You're getting a tick for the bottom item because it's not supposed to match that case. As for your question, it generally depends how they're called - eg. in Python's re module, whether you call search() or match(). You can force a regex to match the entire string by adding ^ and $.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- sdepablos 14y ago
  I was just taking a look to it as I'd like some of my non-technical staff to understand how regex works - they need it for Google Analytics filters - and it looks wonderful.
- sdepablos 14y ago
  Just two comments: * when having cases that should match and other that not, It would be ok to differentiate them * in some lessons it would be ok to force the full string to be matched. If not it's too easy to write i.e. file in http://regexone.com/lesson/8 http://regexone.com/lesson/8? and pass to the next one.
tsergiu 14y ago
Yes, the intention was to help solve those cases where you are staring at your screen because you don't know where the match went wrong. I'm thinking of doing some tutorials geared towards teaching students in grade school how to use them. I think a visual representation would help significantly.
anigbrowl 14y ago
Seconded - it's superb. Having the example button for new users of regexes or people who haven't used one in a while is an excellent addition, as are the diagrams. I find it sort of sad that several people have responded by linking to their preferred (but clearly inferior) Regex pages, which detracts from the accomplishment of this one.
gizmo686 14y ago
I understand RegEx, but am (almost) completely unable to read it. For me, this site it perfect. The way I learned RegEx was simply spending 2 work days writing a parser with it. I think the problem is that there is a moment when RegEx suddenly makes sense, and you cannot understand how anyone can be confused by it (even when you yourself were confused just 5 minutes ago).

kgen 14y ago

I once wrote a website (http://regexone.com http://regexone.com) to help people learn regular expressions using practical examples -- maybe you would like to give that a try and see if it helps you in understanding the different regexes a bit more?

heywire 14y ago
Thanks for the link, this looks very helpful!
UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
Holy shit, that is amazing. I'm currently working my way through it. I feel more confident already. Seriously thank you.
dancesdrunk 14y ago
Used your site a few months ago and have been recommending it to everyone since! Can I make a request for "best Solutions" & possibly more exercises? Its been the best resource I've found for getting the basics down, thanks!
Jam0864 14y ago
This is an amazing website, cheers!
zaptheimpaler 14y ago
I just went through all the examples, that was awesome! Best tutorial I've seen yet. With this and debuggex, I should be all set to parse HTML with regexes (kidding). By the way, could someone explain this to me - do regexes match a string if a part of a string matches the regex, or if the whole string does? For example, this regex "([+|-]* )(\d+[,|.]* )(\d+)(\.)?(e)?(\d+)" (intended to match decimal/scientific numbers - see http://regexone.com/example/0 http://regexone.com/example/0) matches "720p" on regexone, but fails to match on debuggex. So it seems like it varies depending on some configuration - is that right?
- archangel_one 14y ago
  That regex doesn't match 720p on regexone (and shouldn't - it has required spaces in it). You're getting a tick for the bottom item because it's not supposed to match that case. As for your question, it generally depends how they're called - eg. in Python's re module, whether you call search() or match(). You can force a regex to match the entire string by adding ^ and $.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
sdepablos 14y ago
I was just taking a look to it as I'd like some of my non-technical staff to understand how regex works - they need it for Google Analytics filters - and it looks wonderful.
sdepablos 14y ago
Just two comments: * when having cases that should match and other that not, It would be ok to differentiate them * in some lessons it would be ok to force the full string to be matched. If not it's too easy to write i.e. file in http://regexone.com/lesson/8 http://regexone.com/lesson/8? and pass to the next one.

tsergiu 14y ago

Yes, the intention was to help solve those cases where you are staring at your screen because you don't know where the match went wrong. I'm thinking of doing some tutorials geared towards teaching students in grade school how to use them. I think a visual representation would help significantly.

anigbrowl 14y ago

Seconded - it's superb. Having the example button for new users of regexes or people who haven't used one in a while is an excellent addition, as are the diagrams. I find it sort of sad that several people have responded by linking to their preferred (but clearly inferior) Regex pages, which detracts from the accomplishment of this one.

gizmo686 14y ago

I understand RegEx, but am (almost) completely unable to read it. For me, this site it perfect. The way I learned RegEx was simply spending 2 work days writing a parser with it. I think the problem is that there is a moment when RegEx suddenly makes sense, and you cannot understand how anyone can be confused by it (even when you yourself were confused just 5 minutes ago).