Syntax highlighting for regexp

[Daniel DeLorme]

We all now regular expressions can be difficult to read, but it seems to
me like good syntax highlighting *within* a regexp would make the task
much easier. Even something as simple as a different color for control
characters vs literals. Is there an editor which does that?

Daniel

 

[Daniel Finnie]

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

You can check out The Regex Coach [1] on Windows to help develop regular
expressions although it will not do syntax highlighting in your editor.

Dan

[1] http://www.weitz.de/regex-coach/

 

[Ryan Davis]

We all now regular expressions can be difficult to read

Well... I find your English harder to read than my regexps.

 

[Robert Klemme]

We all now regular expressions can be difficult to read, but it seems to
me like good syntax highlighting *within* a regexp would make the task
much easier. Even something as simple as a different color for control
characters vs literals. Is there an editor which does that?

I do not know one off the top of my head but various editors allow to
jump to matching brackets or highlight the expression between two
matching brackets. There is also option /x which allows for nice
regular expression formatting (including comments).

Kind regards

robert

 

[mdiam]

We all now regular expressions can be difficult to read, but it seems to
me like good syntax highlighting *within* a regexp would make the task
much easier. Even something as simple as a different color for control
characters vs literals. Is there an editor which does that?

Daniel

tkregexp : A Tcl Tk is available by Laurent Riesterer (salut
Laurent !) :
http://laurent.riesterer.free.fr/regexp/
There is little difference between advanced tcl versus ruby regexp
syntaxe, so perhaps is a good candidate for a TkRuby application
exemple ?


PS. for those interested, there is a discution on the list:
(e-mail address removed)

-- Maurice

 

[Ezra Zygmuntowicz]

We all now regular expressions can be difficult to read, but it
seems to me like good syntax highlighting *within* a regexp would
make the task much easier. Even something as simple as a different
color for control characters vs literals. Is there an editor which
does that?

Daniel

Daniel-

This is not exactly a regex syntax highlighter but it is one of the
coolest regex tools I'v ever seen. It's an animated state machine
chart based on regexes you paste in and you can see the state machine
animate as it matches your string:

http://osteele.com/tools/reanimator/

Cheers-

- Ezra Zygmuntowicz
-- Founder & Software Architect
-- (e-mail address removed)
-- EngineYard.com