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How can I test the same regex against different regular expression engines?

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  • @Lasse: how is this not constructive again? Commented Feb 26, 2014 at 4:43
  • @DanDascalescu This question is far too broad. Commented Feb 26, 2014 at 5:07
  • @chrylis: Edited. I've narrowed it down to testing the same regexp against multiple engines. Please see @Shog9's comments on moderating tool recommendations as well. Commented Feb 26, 2014 at 5:17
  • @DanDascalescu You've completely misunderstood the original intent of the question but since I don't mind the question you're asking I don't see any point in editing it back. Commented Feb 26, 2014 at 13:47
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    @DanDascalescu - you're making a fool of yourself here - this question was asked in August 2008 - i.e. the first few days of SO's existence. Running around down-voting answers and resurrecting questions which are now into their second half decade just makes you look slightly unhinged. Commented Feb 26, 2014 at 16:04

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The most powerful free online regexp testing tool is by far http://regex101.com/ - lets you select the RE engine (PCRE, JavaScript, Python), has a debugger, colorizes the matches, explains the regexp on the fly, can create permalinks to the regex playground.

Other online tools:

Windows desktop tools:

Jeff Atwood [wrote about regular expressions]( post:).

Other tools recommended by SO users include:

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7 Comments

rubular is great, online and free...
I love regex coach - it does dynamic searching as you type. The only thing is that it seems like it's gone into hibernation.
txt2re.com tool nice to start learn regular expression.
regexhero.net/tester is a very nice tool
+1 for regexpal.com it's my favorite. :D
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RegexBuddy

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I use Expresso (www.ultrapico.com). It has a lot of nice features for the developer. The Regulator used to be my favorite, but it hasn't been updated in so long and I constantly ran into crashes with complicated RegExs.

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+1 Its all good now. Theres been an update in 09. Expresso 3.0, its pretty stable.
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Here are some for the Mac: (Note: don't judge the tools by their websites)

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I will totally judge tools by their web sites, thank you very much. ;)
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If you are an Emacs user, the command re-builder lets you type an Emacs regex and shows on the fly the matching strings in the current buffer, with colors to mark groups. It's free as Emacs.

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Rubular is free, easy to use and looks nice.

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RegexBuddy is a weapon of choice

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Care to expand on that? What was your experience with the tool? Maybe mention it's Windows only and costs $40?
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I use the excellent and free Rad Software Regular Expression Designer.

If you just want to write a regular expression, have a little help with the syntax and test the RE's matching and replacing then this fairly light-footprint tool is ideal.

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couple of eclipse plugins for those using eclipse,
http://www.brosinski.com/regex/

http://www.bastian-bergerhoff.com/eclipse/features/web/QuickREx/toc.html

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Kodos of course. Cause it's Pythonic. ;)

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RegexBuddy is great!!!

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I agree on RegExBuddy, but if you want free or when I'm working somewhere and not on my own system RegExr is a great online (Flash) tool that has lots of pre-built regex segments to work with and does real-time pattern matching for your testing.

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You could carry around a portable installation of RegexBuddy on a USB stick whenever you're not on your own system.
Flash tools suck. I'm glad RegExr is dead.
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In the standard Python installation there is a "Tools/scripts" directory containing redemo.py.

This creates an interactive Tkinter window in which you can experiment with regexs.

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In the past I preferred The Regex Coach for its simplistic layout, instantaneous highlighting and its price (free).

Every once in awhile though I run into an issue with it when trying to test .NET regular expressions. For that, it turns out, it's better to use a tool that actually uses the .NET regular expression engine. That was my whole reason to build Regex Hero last year. It runs in Silverlight, and as such, runs off of the .NET Regex Class library directly.

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RegexBuddy does not use the .NET regex engine. It uses the JGSoft engine, which is just as good, but with a slightly different feature set. For example, it doesn't have .NET's "balanced matching" feature, but it does support unrestricted, variable-length lookbehind expressions--the only regex flavor besides .NET to do so. As for Regex Hero, it's not really free; the online version is a demo that constantly nags you to buy the "professional" version.
@Alan - Thanks for the correction. I wrote this answer a long time ago when Regex Hero was completely free and light on features. I started charging for the professional version last December.
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Regexbuddy does all this. http://www.regexbuddy.com/

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see the accepted answer to this question: Learning Regular Expressions

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I'll add to the vote of Reggy for the Mac, gonna try out some of the other ones that Joseph suggested and upvote that post tomorrow when my limit gets reset.

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for online: http://regexpal.com/ for desktop: The Regex Coach

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+1 For Regex Coach here. Free and does the job really well.

http://www.weitz.de/regex-coach/

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I am still a big The Regulator fan.
There are some stability problems but these can be fixed by disableing the Intellisense. It gets mad with some expressions and typos in building an expression.

Would love it if Roy Osherove updated, but looks like he is busy with other things.

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I like to use this online one: http://www.cuneytyilmaz.com/prog/jrx/ Of course, it'll be javascript regexp, but I've never yet done anything clever enough to notice the difference.

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I personally like the Regular Expression Tester.

It's a free firefox plugin, so always on!

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Also this regex plugin can be useful for eclipse and idea users.

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I like http://regexhero.net/tester/ a lot

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Check out Regex Master which is free and open source regular expression tester

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This regex tester able to test javascript, php and python http://www.piliapp.com/regex-tester/

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RegExr for testing with the Actionscript 3 (whichever standard that may be)

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Flash-based tools suck. I'm glad RegExr is dead.
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How much is your time worth? Pay the $40 and get RegexBuddy. I did, and I even upgraded from 2.x version to 3.x. It has paid for itself many times over.

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RegExBuddy so far I concur with and endorse.

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