Some say a set of regular expressions comprises a domain-specific language, or DSL; essentially, a mini-programming language. A full-blown programming language like Java or Python can do many things, ...

If you've ever wished Excel could handle text patterns the way Python or JavaScript does, these functions deliver exactly ...

Java’s character and assorted string classes offer low-level support for pattern matching, but that support typically leads to complex code. For simpler and more efficient coding, Java offers the ...

You know the maxim, “Give a man to fish and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime”? A similar adage applies to anyone who spends a lot of time working with text on their ...

When I’m writing in Editorial, I often need to make sure I’m dealing with a valid URL in the system clipboard, the document editor, or in a variable. To do so, I’ve long employed John Gruber’s liberal ...

If you work with strings in your Python scripts and you're writing obscure logic to process them, then you need to look into ...

grep is a command-line utility for searching plain-text data sets for lines that match a regular expression. Created in the early days of Unix, it has become a cornerstone of text processing in Linux ...

Regex is a powerful – yet overlooked – tool in search and data analysis. With just a single line, you can automate what would otherwise take dozens of lines of code. Short for “regular expression,” ...