What is regex development?
A regular expression (also known as regex) is a sequence of characters that simplify complex text processing tasks. For web developers, having a good grasp of regular expressions is particularly essential because the built-in JavaScript methods are often insufficient for complicated jobs like validating text inputs.
Who invented regular expressions?
Stephen Cole Kleene
The concept of regular expressions began in the 1950s, when the American mathematician Stephen Cole Kleene formalized the description of a regular language. They came into common use with Unix text-processing utilities.
What is a regular expression language?
Regular Expression Language – Quick Reference. A regular expression is a pattern that the regular expression engine attempts to match in input text. A pattern consists of one or more character literals, operators, or constructs. For a brief introduction, see .NET Regular Expressions.
What are the methods of the regex class?
The methods of the Regex class let you perform the following operations: Determine whether the regular expression pattern occurs in the input text by calling the Regex.IsMatch method. For an example that uses the IsMatch method for validating text, see How to: Verify that Strings Are in Valid Email Format.
What is extensive pattern matching in regular expressions?
The extensive pattern-matching notation of regular expressions enables you to quickly parse large amounts of text to: Find specific character patterns. Validate text to ensure that it matches a predefined pattern (such as an email address). Extract, edit, replace, or delete text substrings.
How to apply options to a regular expression pattern?
The option applies to the regular expression pattern from the point at which the option is defined, and is effective either to the end of the pattern or to the point where another construct reverses the option. By using the grouping construct (?imnsx-imnsx: subexpression), which defines options for the specified group only.