How can test I regular expressions using multiple RE engines?

Question

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

@chrylis: Edited. I've narrowed it down to testing the same regexp against multiple engines. Please see [@Shog9's comments](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/222790/request-to-reopen-so-question-on-javascript-error-detection) on moderating tool recommendations as well. — Dan Dascalescu, Feb 26 '14 at 05:17
@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. — Onorio Catenacci, Feb 26 '14 at 13:47
@OnorioCatenacci: you might not have noticed that the question as you asked it, was closed as "not constructive" - see [its history](http://stackoverflow.com/posts/32282/revisions). My edit managed to reopen it after almost two years. You're welcome. — Dan Dascalescu, Feb 26 '14 at 14:12
@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. — Will Dean, Feb 26 '14 at 16:04
I'm glad wanting to have outdated information makes you look better, @Will. Of course, regular expressions are a thing of the past, and the upvoted that this question has received are no indication of interest in it. — Dan Dascalescu, Feb 26 '14 at 16:40
@DanDascalescu I don't really care if it's re-opened or not; I made it community wiki long before it closed. Mainly I was looking for some other regex tools--I wasn't looking to test the same regex against different regex engines. As I say, you've completely misunderstood the original intent of my question--regardless of whether or not the question should have been closed. — Onorio Catenacci, Feb 26 '14 at 21:10
@OnorioCatenacci: I understood your question perfectly but in its original form, it didn't abide by the StackOverflow guidelines against soliciting tool recommendations. — Dan Dascalescu, Feb 27 '14 at 00:00

score 75 · Accepted Answer · edited May 03 '23 at 06:51

75

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:

http://regexpal.com/ - powered by the XRegExp JavaScript library
http://www.rubular.com/ - Ruby-based
Perl Regex Tutor - uses PCRE

Windows desktop tools:

The Regex Coach - free Windows application
RegexBuddy recommended by most, costs US$ 39.95

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

Other tools recommended by SO users include:

http://www.txt2re.com/ Online free tool to generate regular expressions for multiple language (@palmsey another thread)
The Added Bytes Regular Expressions Cheat Sheet (@GateKiller another thread)
http://regexhero.net/ - The Online .NET Regular Expression Tester. Not free.

edited May 03 '23 at 06:51

mousetail

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answered Aug 28 '08 at 13:37

Pat

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rubular is great, online and free... – spinodal Sep 25 '08 at 13:44
I love regex coach - it does dynamic searching as you type. The only thing is that it seems like it's gone into hibernation. – aronchick May 13 '09 at 22:07
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http://www.txt2re.com/ tool nice to start learn regular expression. – bora.oren Dec 09 '09 at 14:23
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http://regexhero.net/tester/ is a very nice tool – roman m Dec 10 '10 at 18:13
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+1 for http://regexpal.com/ it's my favorite. :D – Galled Nov 28 '11 at 22:32
Quickrex is really good for eclipse: http://bastian-bergerhoff.com/eclipse/features/web/QuickREx/toc.html#installation – nemoo Jan 28 '13 at 11:17
regexpal.com doesn't show the matching groups. Worthless! – Eyal Jun 16 '13 at 14:24

score 16 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 28 '08 at 13:36

16

RegexBuddy

answered Aug 28 '08 at 13:36

JimmyJ

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score 10 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 28 '08 at 13:40

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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.

answered Aug 28 '08 at 13:40

Tim Cochran

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+1 Its all good now. Theres been an update in 09. Expresso 3.0, its pretty stable. – gideon Dec 09 '10 at 08:40

score 9 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 28 '08 at 14:17

9

Here are some for the Mac: (Note: don't judge the tools by their websites)

RegExhibit - My Favorite, powerful and easy
Reggy - Simple and Clean
RegexWidget - A Dashboard Widget for quick testing

answered Aug 28 '08 at 14:17

Joseph Pecoraro

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I will totally judge tools by their web sites, thank you very much. ;) – Kjensen Sep 09 '09 at 16:32

score 8 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 28 '08 at 14:14

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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.

answered Aug 28 '08 at 14:14

Sébastien RoccaSerra

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score 7 · Answer 6 · answered Aug 28 '08 at 13:39

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Rubular is free, easy to use and looks nice.

answered Aug 28 '08 at 13:39

Neall

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score 6 · Answer 7 · answered Sep 25 '08 at 13:39

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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.

answered Sep 25 '08 at 13:39

Sprogz

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score 6 · Answer 8 · answered Aug 28 '08 at 13:36

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RegexBuddy is a weapon of choice

answered Aug 28 '08 at 13:36

aku

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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? – Dan Dascalescu Feb 26 '14 at 04:51

score 3 · Answer 9 · answered Aug 28 '08 at 17:53

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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

answered Aug 28 '08 at 17:53

Brendon-Van-Heyzen

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score 3 · Answer 10 · answered May 15 '09 at 20:10

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

answered May 15 '09 at 20:10

Kim

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score 2 · Answer 11 · answered Aug 28 '08 at 13:38

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RegexBuddy is great!!!

answered Aug 28 '08 at 13:38

Galwegian

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score 2 · Answer 12 · answered Aug 28 '08 at 13:49

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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.

answered Aug 28 '08 at 13:49

Adam Haile

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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. – Jan Goyvaerts Nov 23 '09 at 14:32
Flash tools suck. I'm glad RegExr is dead. – Dan Dascalescu Feb 26 '14 at 04:52

score 2 · Answer 13 · answered Mar 24 '09 at 15:53

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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.

answered Mar 24 '09 at 15:53

Nick

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Steve Wortham · Answer 14 · 2010-12-10T22:43:32.907

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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.

edited Dec 10 '10 at 22:43

answered May 08 '09 at 21:57

Steve Wortham

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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 Moore Dec 10 '10 at 22:01
@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. – Steve Wortham Dec 10 '10 at 22:39

score 1 · Answer 15 · answered Nov 18 '09 at 12:03

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I personally like the Regular Expression Tester.

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

answered Nov 18 '09 at 12:03

user213691

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score 1 · Answer 16 · answered Dec 09 '09 at 14:27

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

answered Dec 09 '09 at 14:27

bora.oren

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score 1 · Answer 17 · answered Jun 16 '14 at 10:06

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

answered Jun 16 '14 at 10:06

Girvan

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score 1 · Answer 18 · answered Aug 28 '08 at 13:37

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Regexbuddy does all this. http://www.regexbuddy.com/

answered Aug 28 '08 at 13:37

Will Dean

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score 1 · Answer 19 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:33

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see the accepted answer to this question: Learning Regular Expressions

edited May 23 '17 at 12:33

Community

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answered Aug 28 '08 at 13:38

Sam Hasler

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score 1 · Answer 20 · answered Aug 28 '08 at 14:25

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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.

answered Aug 28 '08 at 14:25

Teifion

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score 1 · Answer 21 · answered Aug 28 '08 at 15:29

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

answered Aug 28 '08 at 15:29

Dinah

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score 1 · Answer 22 · answered Aug 28 '08 at 15:50

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

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

answered Aug 28 '08 at 15:50

Lee Theobald

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score 1 · Answer 23 · answered Aug 28 '08 at 17:50

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.

score 1 · Answer 24 · answered Dec 10 '10 at 18:13

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

answered Dec 10 '10 at 18:13

roman m

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score 1 · Answer 25 · answered Apr 17 '11 at 05:35

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

answered Apr 17 '11 at 05:35

Yaplex

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score 1 · Answer 26 · answered Sep 16 '08 at 11:15

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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.

answered Sep 16 '08 at 11:15

Benjol

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score 0 · Answer 27 · answered Aug 28 '08 at 18:12

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

answered Aug 28 '08 at 18:12

grapefrukt

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Flash-based tools suck. I'm glad RegExr is dead. – Dan Dascalescu Feb 26 '14 at 04:52

score 0 · Answer 28 · answered Sep 16 '08 at 14:32

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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.

answered Sep 16 '08 at 14:32

Mick

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score -1 · Answer 29 · answered Aug 28 '08 at 13:47

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RegExBuddy so far I concur with and endorse.

answered Aug 28 '08 at 13:47

Pat

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How can test I regular expressions using multiple RE engines?

29 Answers29

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