REmake

A high-level language for building regular expressions (RE)

The purpose of the language is to make it easier to write regular expressions for most scenarios, as opposed to writing most regular expressions.

Installation

On macOS, download the UNIX executable REmake from the scripts/ directory, and make sure it is in your PATH.

Usage

REmake sample.re

For command documentation, type:

REmake -h

For example, this program for finding floating pointing numbers:

digit() * 0, ...
period()
digit() * 1, ...
group (
  "e"
  digit() * 1, ...
) * 0, 1

produces a single-line regex:

\d*\.\d+(?:e\d+)?

as well as a free-spaced regex:

\d                  # A digit
*                   # Zero or more times (greedy)
\.                  # A period (escaped)
\d                  # A digit
+                   # One or more times (greedy)
(?:                 # Begin group (not captured):
  e                 # The character 'e'
  \d                # A digit
  +                 # One or more times (greedy)
  )                 # End of group
?                   # Optionally (greedy)

Documentation

The language is documented here.

Feedback

I welcome your feedback in Discussions:

• What language features would make this tool most useful?
• What output flavors would make this tool most useful?

Obviously, I need a Windows executable. I would appreciate help with that, as I don't have a Windows PC.