How do you find out if a user has entered a valid email address? Do you check for an at-sign, or is it more complicated? For many developers the answer is a regular expression, a little bit of code ...

The first time I ever encountered a regular expression was many years ago now, but I still remember my first thoughts on it: What is this string-like thing? I don’t want to touch it, it looks scary. I ...

Regular expressions are like power tools: They may look scary, but are easy to use once you understand their basic building blocks. Regular expressions -- those scary strings that might as well be ...

There are two types of people in the world: those who have no idea what a regular expression is, and those who not only know what they are but can compose them on the fly and tend to use them in ...

Regular expressions give Tim Patrick the creeps, but he overcame his fears by discovering specially crafted regex patterns can access data in a way that’s actually kind of cool. I've always been ...

In the Star Wars universe, not everyone uses a lightsaber, and those who do wield them had to build them themselves. There’s something to be said about that strategy. Building a car or a radio is a ...

Even though it has somewhat of a checkered reputation, being able to wield it will save you a ton of time. There's a saying that I've heard numerous times about regular expressions (regex). It goes ...