RegEz ·

RegEz is a RegEx generator for coding regular expressions in JavaScript.

Installation

Using Yarn:

yarn add regez

Using NPM:

npm i regez

Introduction

The goal is to create simple small blocks of RegEx and putting them together to create more complex RegExs, in a way more readable and understandable way.

We write all the RegEx using English and JavaScript syntax. Of course understanding the RegEx language is essential; But we will not write anything but pure English and JavaScript.

Tutorial

As an example, we want to create a simple RegEx for email validation.

Consider an email address like this: [email protected].

Our rules for a valid email address are going to be:

Note: For a real life project, you need to add more rules to this example.

• NAME

  • Can only contain letters, digits, underscores and dots.
  • Has to be at least 5 and at most 32 characters.
  • Cannot start or end with an underscore or a dot.

• DOMAIN

  • Can only contain letters.
  • Has to be at least 3 and at most 12 characters.

• EXT

  • Can only contain letters.
  • Has to be at least 2 and at most 8 characters.

Each one of them is going to be a block of RegEx.

Blocks

Import the Block module:

import { Block } from 'regez';

Let's create the blocks.

NAME

Create the NAME block like this:

const NAME = new Block('single-char');

Explanation:

• Block is a class module so we need to use the new keyword.

• We have two types of blocks:

  • literal: Matches the block literally. Same as /.../.
  • single-char: Matches any of the characters of the block; Meaning that the order is not important. Same as /[...]/.

  Since NAME can be anything, we will use a single-char block.

Rule 1: Can only contain letters, digits, underscores and dots.

To add perfect groups of characters such as all letters, we will use a method called all():

const NAME = new Block('single-char').all('letters', 'digits');

// Result: /[a-zA-Z\d]/

To add underscore and dot, we use the chars() method:

const NAME = new Block('single-char').all('letters', 'digits').chars('_.');

// Result: /[a-zA-Z\d_\.]/

Note: Using a dot without escaping means matching all characters. RegEz adds a backslash to all special characters, meaning that you want to match that character literally; Not the special meaning of it.

Rule 2: Has to be at least 5 and at most 32 characters.

The current result matches only one character of those that we added. To add the length limit, we will use the repeats() method:

const NAME = new Block('single-char')
  .all('letters', 'digits')
  .chars('_.')
  .repeats({ atLeast: 5, atMost: 32 });

// Result: /[a-zA-Z\d_\.]{5,32}/

Note: Method repeats() only works for single-char blocks. It has no effect on a literal block.

Method repeats() includes the following options:

• times: Gets one of the following values:
  • zero-or-one: Matches one character or nothing. Same as /[...]?/.
  • zero-or-more: Matches unlimited length of characters. Same as /[...]*/.
  • one-or-more: Matches at least one character. Same as /[...]+/.
• exactly: The exact number of repeats. For example /[...]{3}/.
• atLeast: The minimum number of repeats. For example /[...]{3,}/.
• atMost: The maximum number of repeats. For example /[...]{,3}/.

Note: You can use atLeast and atMost together. If you use the other options along with each other, the more important one will be considered:

Options by importance: times > exactly > atLeast = atMost.

Rule 3: Cannot start or end with an underscore or a dot.

To apply this rule we have to create another block like this:

const _NAME = new Block('single-char').chars('_.');

// Result: /[_\.]/

Explanation: To show that this is a rule for the beginning of NAME, I use an underscore before it. You can name it whatever you want.

To say that we don't want these characters, we use the the except() method:

const _NAME = new Block('single-char').except().chars('_.');

// Result: /[^_\.]/

To make it more visible for this example, I make a copy of _NAME as NAME_ for the end of NAME but you don't have to, since they're exactly the same.

DOMAIN and EXT

Like what we did with NAME:

const DOMAIN = new Block('single-char')
  .all('letters')
  .repeats({ atLeast: 3, atMost: 12 });

// Result: /[a-zA-Z]{3,12}/

const EXT = new Block('single-char')
  .all('letters')
  .repeats({ atLeast: 2, atMost: 8 });

// Result: /[a-zA-Z]{2,8}/

All blocks have been created. Now we put them together.

RegEz:

The RegEz module will do this for us.

import { RegEz } from 'regez';

const emailRegEx = RegEz();

Imagine a structure of blocks like this: ((_NAME)(NAME)(NAME_))@(DOMAIN).(EXT).

To achieve this, we pass an "in-inny!" array of blocks as the first parameter:

const emailRegEx = RegEz([
  [[_NAME], [NAME], [NAME_]],
  '@',
  [DOMAIN],
  '.',
  [EXT],
]);

// Result: /(([^\d_\.])([a-zA-Z\d_\.]{5,32})([^\d_\.]))@([a-zA-Z]{3,12})\.([a-zA-Z]{2,8})/

Explanation:

• As you can see, you can use both blocks and strings. Strings will match literally.
• If you use special characters in strings, RegEz will add a backslash to them and disable their special behavior.
• You can use nested arrays with any structure and depth you want; But too deep may cause stack overflow.

Flags

You can pass an array of RegEx flags as the second parameter. For this example, we want our RegEx to be case-insensitive. So we use the insensitive flag:

const emailRegEx = RegEz(
  [[[_NAME], [NAME], [NAME_]], '@', [DOMAIN], '.', [EXT]],
  ['insensitive']
);

// Result: /(([^_\.])([a-zA-Z\d_\.]{5,32})([^_\.]))@([a-zA-Z]{3,12})\.([a-zA-Z]{2,8})/i

This will add the i flag to the RegEx: /.../i.

See all RegEx flags here.

Begin ^ and End $

We expect an email string without anything before and after it. For example we don't want a match for: "hello [email protected] world!".

To achieve this, we pass startOfLine and endOfLine as the third and the fourth parameters:

const emailRegEx = RegEz(
  [[[_NAME], [NAME], [NAME_]], '@', [DOMAIN], '.', [EXT]],
  ['insensitive'],
  true,
  true
);

This will add the ^ and the $ to the RegEx: /^...$/. So the final result is:

/^(([^_\.])([a-zA-Z\d_\.]{5,32})([^_\.]))@([a-zA-Z]{3,12})\.([a-zA-Z]{2,8})$/i

Now the RegEx is complete. Module RegEz returns a RegExp object. So you can test a string like this:

emailRegEx.test('[email protected]');

// Result: true

Configuration

RegEz prevents usual RegExp errors that crash the app. Instead it logges Sweet Errors that provide a solution to fix the error. It also logges warnings if you're doing something wrong or there's a better way of doing things.

To disable Sweet Errors and warnings, you can create the regez.config.json file in the root directory of your project like this:

{
  "fullErrors": true,
  "noWarnings": true
}

TypeScript

All type declarations come with the library in a .d.ts file.