Show HN: JavaScript regex tester for macOS | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: JavaScript regex tester for macOS

regularity.co

22 pointsmasonicb00m13 comments

I use regex101.com, which has a really great explanation feature, but it's not really built for 'search and replace'. You might want to take a look at it and see how you match up against it.

Highly recommend regex101 to anyone reading this. Multiple language support, colored highlights based on which group matched, a full-fledged debugger that steps through every character tested, and substitution with group references. That said, OP's solution has a much simpler interface, and if you like that kind of thing for focus, it seems like it's a great little app!

This has a simpler interface, yes. But, it took me a while to get comfortable with regular expressions, so the explanations of what was going on was like a built-in tutor, and apps like this definitely need this to be useful to learners.

Another vote for regex101. For those who didn't know it even runs offline ;)

What engine does regex101 use for JavaScript regexps? It seems to get all of the tricky cases right.

From their FAQ:

For JavaScript, regex101 uses the browser's regex engine, so you may see different results on different browsers for the same test case.

FAQ link: https://github.com/firasdib/Regex101/wiki/FAQ#how-close-does...

This is the actual service worker for JS regexps: https://gist.github.com/helb/6c9edb53d73489f85390f82826c2b08...

If you're not using regex101.com you are still living in the stone ages.

Great design! This would make a really awesome PWA vs electron only. Let me know if you'd like any help with that

Awesome design, I just started learning regex deeply so this is serendipity :)

Thanks! If you see anything that could be improved, please LMK

"It's free - what are you waiting for..." seems kind of, creepy?

Also, what's the value in having this in JavaScript?

The "JavaScript" qualifier is just to let you know what flavor of regex it expects.

Thanks for the feedback :)

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