Regex Tester Homework

Overview:

For this homework, you will use the regex tester found at http://www.zytrax.com/tech/web/regex.htm . You will write one sentence, and then make up 5 search patterns that use the regular expression commands we learned in class:

· anchors of ^ and $

· use the . dot to mean any character

· use a class to mean any character inside the brackets [ ]

You will then create a word document that contains your sentence, your search strings and a copy of the results of each search.

Please also read http://www.zytrax.com/tech/web/regex.htm I hope you to follow well in the beginning, but if it gets confusing after "more stuff" that is okay.

Exact Steps:

1. Find the tester box:

· go to http://www.zytrax.com/tech/web/regex.htm

· Search for "If you plan to experiment with the target strings"

· scroll down one screen to see the String, Re and Results box to see the box below:

2. Write one sentence, any sentence in the String box, and copy that to a new word document

3. Write a search expression to test matching to your sentence into RE, and copy that into the word document

· maybe write one regex search expression that will match the end of the line, and put $ to indicate end of line

· maybe Write one regex search expression that would have matched a word, but fails because you put $

· maybe write one regex search expression that looks for the first letter of a word in your sentence and then any 2 characters (..) and then the fourth letter

· Here is where you experiment with . ^ $ and [ ]

· Remember you are experimenting with:

· anchors of ^ and $ - ^ is beginning of line and $ is end of line

· use the . dot to mean any character

· use a class to mean any character inside the brackets [ ]

· Example:

4. click search to see the results box fill, and copy the results into the word document.

5. repeat 5 times with the same sentence (so repeat 3-4)

6. upload the document to moodle.

Sample Document for homework: (This uses my sentence and my searches. You use your own.)

The cats fight every morning and wake me up at 5:30 am.

RE: wake$

Result: no match

RE: am.$

result: The cats fight every morning and wake me up at 5:30 <am.>

First match: am. at position 53

RE: c.t

Result: The <cat>s fight every morning and wake me up at 5:30 am.

First match: cat at position 5

RE: .... (note with a space before and after)

Result: The< cats >fight every morning and wake me up at 5:30 am.

First match: cats at position 4

Additional matches:

Found: wake at position 33

Found: 5:30 at position 47

RE: [every]

Th<e> cats fight every morning and wake me up at 5:30 am.

First match: e at position 3

Additional matches:

Found: e at position 16

Found: v at position 17

Found: e at position 18

Found: r at position 19

Found: y at position 20

Found: r at position 24

Found: e at position 37

Found: e at position 40