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0 pointseddd-ddde1y ago0 comments

I know regex. But I use it so sparingly that every time I need it I forgot again the character for word boundary, or the character for whitespace, or the exact incantation for negative lookahead. Is it >!? who knows.

A shortcut to type in natural language and get something I can validate in seconds is really useful.

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5 comments · 1 top-level

layer81y ago· 4 in thread

How do you validate it if you don’t know the syntax? Or are you saying that looking up syntax –> semantics is significantly quicker than semantics –> syntax? Which I don’t find to be the case. What takes time is grokking the semantics in context, which you have to do in both cases.

eddd-dddeOP1y ago

In my case most of my regex is for utility scripts for text processing. That means that I just run the script, and if it does what I want it to do I know I'm done.

LLMs have been amazing in my experience putting together awk scripts or shell scripts in general. I've also discovered many more tools and features I wouldn't have otherwise.

tough1y ago

https://regex101.com/

layer81y ago

That doesn’t answer the question. By “validate”, I mean “prove to yourself that the regular expression is correct”. Much like with program code, you can’t do that by only testing it. You need to understand what the expression actually says.

marcosdumay1y ago

Notice that site has a very usable reference list you can consult for all those details the GP forgets.

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