Code-Parsing Regular Expressions via Lighter.js

By  on  

Perfecting a regular expression can take a lot of time and testing but once achieved can be a absolutely golden. While looking through the source code of MooTools syntax highlighter Lighter.js I stumbled upon a few code-parsing regular expressions that you might be interested in.

The JavaScript

	// Matches a C style single-line comment.
	slashComments: /(?:^|[^\\])\/\/.*$/gm,
	
	// Matches a Perl style single-line comment.
	poundComments: /#.*$/gm,
	
	// Matches a C style multi-line comment.
	multiComments: /\/\*[\s\S]*?\*\//gm,
	
	// Matches a string enclosed by single quotes.
	aposStrings:   /'[^'\\]*(?:\\.[^'\\]*)*'/gm, 
	
	// Matches a string enclosed by double quotes.
	quotedStrings: /"[^"\\]*(?:\\.[^"\\]*)*"/gm, 
	
	// Matches both.
	strings:       /'[^'\\]*(?:\\.[^'\\]*)*'|"[^"\\]*(?:\\.[^"\\]*)*"/gm,
	
	// Matches a property: .property style.
	properties:    /\.([\w]+)\s*/gi,   
	
	// Matches a method call: .methodName() style.
	methodCalls:   /\.([\w]+)\s*\(/gm, 
	
	// Matches a function call: functionName() style.
	functionCalls: /\b([\w]+)\s*\(/gm,   
	
	// Matches any of the common brackets.
	brackets:      /\{|\}|\(|\)|\[|\]/g, 
	
	// Matches integers, decimals, hexadecimals.
	numbers:       /\b((?:(\d+)?\.)?[0-9]+|0x[0-9A-F]+)\b/gi 

Regular expressions can look heinous so I apologize to anyone whose brains imploded after looking at the above hieroglyphics text. Have useful regular expressions you use often? Share them!

Recent Features

  • By
    Convert XML to JSON with JavaScript

    If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I've been working on a super top secret mobile application using Appcelerator Titanium.  The experience has been great:  using JavaScript to create easy to write, easy to test, native mobile apps has been fun.  My...

  • By
    CSS Filters

    CSS filter support recently landed within WebKit nightlies. CSS filters provide a method for modifying the rendering of a basic DOM element, image, or video. CSS filters allow for blurring, warping, and modifying the color intensity of elements. Let's have...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Build a Toggling Announcement Slider Using MooTools 1.2

    A few of my customer have asked for me to create a subtle but dynamic (...I know...) way for them to advertise different specials on their website. Not something that would display on every page, but periodically or only the homepage. Using a trick...

  • By
    “Top” Watermark Using MooTools

    Whenever you have a long page worth of content, you generally want to add a "top" anchor link at the bottom of the page so that your user doesn't have to scroll forever to get to the top. The only problem with this method is...

Discussion

  1. David: very interesting, could you provide examples for each expression? ty so much!

  2. That’s pretty neat

    I’ve always used http://www.gskinner.com/RegExr/ to text my RegExp

  3. Well, im not a veteran programmer but i did a noobMatcher to test my regExp hehe

    http://vrs.host56.com/noobMatcher/

  4. Thanks for this Tutorial. Can u provide Demo for this.

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!