funexp

A fun and functional way to write regular expressions (RegExp).

FunExp is a useful tool focused in maintainability for larger projects that depends on RegExp to do heavy work. It can speed up the learning process of a new person that is envolved with the project, or just make RegExp easily readable. It has a fast learning curve (faster than RegExp itself) and can be integrated with any language that supports regular expressions.

API

You can use funexp directly from your code:

npm i @funexp/interpreter

const funexp = require("@funexp/interpreter");

const regex = funexp.parse(/*fun*/`
literal|I love to use
space
group(name="choice")
    alternative
        literal|funexp
        literal|regexp
`);

"I love to use funexp".match(regex);

Or, if you are using Webpack, you can use @funexp/webpack-loader to integrate with your project.

Documentation

This section will be moved to a dedicated page in the future.

• mod

  • Represents a modifier. It depends on the RegExp target language.

    • Parameters:

      • global
        • Don't return after first match.
      • multi-line
        • start and end match start/end of line.
      • insensitive
        • Case insensitive match.
      • ... and many more depending on the target language.

    • Example:

      mod(global, insensitive)
      literal|this is a case insensitive regexp

      will be converted into

      /this is a case insensitive regexp/gi

• start or end

  • Represents the start or ending of the capture. If the modifier multi-line is present, will cause it to represent the start or ending of line.

  • Example:

    start
    any
    end

    will be converted into

    /^.$/

• literal or string

  • Represents a text. Any RegExp character will be automatically escaped.

  • Parameters:

    • optional - If it's an optional capture.
      • Default: false

  • Example:

    literal|funexp is fun?! yes!

    will be converted into

    /funexp is fun\?! yes!/`

• space

  • Represents a literal space character ( ). It's used for legibility purposes.

  • Example:

    space

    will be converted into

    / /

• group

  • Represents a group (capturing or non-capturing).

  • Parameters:

    • optional - If the entire group is an optional capture.
      • Default: false
    • name - The group name
    • capture - If it is a non-capturing group, used just for matching.
      • Default: true

  • Example:

    literal|This next text is
    space
    
    group(capture=false, optional=true)
        literal|surely
        space
    
    literal|optional

    will be converted into

    /This next text is (?:surely )?optional/

• alternative

  • Represents an alternative choice.

  • Example:

    literal|I believe in
    space
    alternative
        literal|pugs
        literal|fun

    will be converted into

    /I believe in pugs|fun/

• any

  • Represents the meta (dot) operator, matches any character.

  • Example:

    any

    will be converted into

    /./

• quantifier

  • Represents a quantifier, used to repeat a match. One of the given parameters needs to be present.

  • Parameters:

    • * - Matches zero or more times.
    • + - Matches one or more times.
    • [0-9] - If any numbers were given (max two), it will be turned into a quantifier for the last token.

  • Example:

    group
        literal|abc
        quantifier(1, 2)
    quantifier(*)

    will be converted into

    /(abc{1,2})*/

• range

  • Represents a range from one to another char.

  • Needs to be inside a charset tag.

  • See charset for an example.

  • Parameters:

    • from - The character where the range starts.
    • to - The character where the range ends.

• charset

  • Represents a character set / class.

  • Example:

    charset
        range(from="a", to="z")
    quantifier(*)

    will be converted into

    /[a-z]*/

• word or non-word

  • Represents a match against any word (or non-word) character.

  • Word is equivalent to [a-zA-Z0-9_].

  • Non-word is equivalent to [^a-zA-Z0-9_].

  • Example:

    word
    non-word

    will be converted into

    /\w\W/

• whitespace or non-whitespace

  • Represents a match against any whitespace (or non-whitespace) character.

  • Whitespace (in Javascript) is equivalent to [\r\n\t\f\v \u00a0\u1680\u2000-\u200a\u2028\u2029\u202f\u205f\u3000\ufeff].

  • Non-whitespace (in Javascript) is equivalent to [^\r\n\t\f\v \u00a0\u1680\u2000-\u200a\u2028\u2029\u202f\u205f\u3000\ufeff].

  • Example:

    whitespace
    non-whitespace

    will be converted into

    /\s\S/

• digit or non-digit

  • Represents a match against any digit (or non-digit) character.

  • Whitespace (in Javascript) is equivalent to [0-9].

  • Non-digit (in Javascript) is equivalent to [^0-9].

  • Example:

    digit
    non-digit

    will be converted into

    /\d\D/

• lazy or greedy

  • Represents a lazy or greedy match.

  • Lazy an greedy matches will consume as much as possible from the previous token.

  • Example:

    literal|i
    space
    group
        literal|love
        space
        lazy
    space
    any
    quantifier(*)

    will be converted into

    /i (love?) .*/

• reference

  • Represents a backreference to an existing group.

  • Parameters:

    • group - The group to be referenced. Can be either the group ID or group name (if named references are supported by the language).

  • Example:

    group
        literal|i love you!
    reference(group=1)

    will be converted into

    /(i love you)\1/

Examples

You can view examples inside the test folder.

Credits

• pug.js
  • funexp uses pug-lexer and pug-parser as the bases for lexing and parsing the pseudo-code.

License

AGPL-3.0