Time to Use Regular Expressions More, Um, Regularly
summary
Argues that regex is the most powerful cross‑platform text tool, then shows exactly how it behaves in .NET/PowerShell: use -match and $matches for quick checks, [regex] cast or New-Object System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex for control, and Select-String as the grep equivalent. Demonstrates engine details—greedy vs lazy, backtracking—and warns that .NET regex can spin into effectively infinite work so implement regex timeouts. Lists practical tools (regex101, RegexBuddy, Regex Workbench) and working examples: emails, SSNs, password checks, HTML extraction.
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chapters (18)
- 0:00Introduction
- 3:55Goals
- 6:54Why regex
- 10:51Why regex is bad
- 12:31What is regex
- 18:07Using regex in PowerShell
- 22:18Wildcards
- 25:42regex row
- 27:52regex engine
- 28:06chunks
- 28:55engine scans
- 29:08how the engine matches
- 30:23Hotdiggity
- 32:43Leftmost
- 34:05Example
- 36:29Backtracking
- 40:56Wildcard
- 52:05Backtrack
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