exrex/README.markdown

177 lines
4.2 KiB
Markdown

EXREX
=====
Irregular methods for regular expressions.
Exrex is a command line tool and python module that generates all - or random - matching strings to a given regular expression and more.
It's pure python, without external dependencies.
There are regular expressions with infinite matching strings (eg.: `[a-z]+`), in these cases exrex limits the maximum length of the infinite parts.
Exrex uses generators, so the memory usage does not depend on the number of matching strings.
[![Version](https://pypip.in/v/exrex/badge.png)](https://crate.io/packages/exrex/) [![Downloads](https://pypip.in/d/exrex/badge.png)](https://crate.io/packages/exrex/)
*Features*
* Generating all matching strings
* Generating a random matching string
* Counting the number of matching strings
* Simplification of regular expressions
### Installation
To install exrex, simply:
```bash
$ pip install exrex
```
or
```bash
$ easy_install exrex
```
Usage
=====
### as python module
```python
>>> import exrex
>>> exrex.getone('(ex)r\\1')
'exrex'
>>> list(exrex.generate('((hai){2}|world!)'))
['haihai', 'world!']
>>> exrex.getone('\d{4}-\d{4}-\d{4}-[0-9]{4}')
'3096-7886-2834-5671'
>>> exrex.getone('(1[0-2]|0[1-9])(:[0-5]\d){2} (A|P)M')
'09:31:40 AM'
>>> exrex.count('[01]{0,9}')
1023
>>> print '\n'.join(exrex.generate('This is (a (code|cake|test)|an (apple|elf|output))\.'))
This is a code.
This is a cake.
This is a test.
This is an apple.
This is an elf.
This is an output.
>>> print exrex.simplify('(ab|ac|ad)')
(a[bcd])
```
### Command line usage
```
> exrex --help
usage: exrex.py [-h] [-o FILE] [-l] [-d DELIMITER] [-v] REGEX
exrex - regular expression string generator
positional arguments:
REGEX REGEX string
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-o FILE, --output FILE
Output file - default is STDOUT
-l N, --limit N Max limit for range size - default is 20
-c, --count Count matching strings
-m N, --max-number N Max number of strings - default is -1
-r, --random Returns a random string that matches to the regex
-s, --simplify Simplifies a regular expression
-d DELIMITER, --delimiter DELIMITER
Delimiter - default is \n
-v, --verbose Verbose mode
```
Examples:
```
$ exrex '[asdfg]'
a
s
d
f
g
$ exrex -r '(0[1-9]|1[012])-\d{2}'
09-85
$ exrex '[01]{10}' -c
1024
```
### Bugs
Bugs or suggestions? Visit the [issue tracker](https://github.com/asciimoo/exrex/issues).
### Documentation
http://exrex.readthedocs.org/en/latest/
### TODO
* Command line switches to change default character sets/ranges/range limits (eg. for '.','\s'..) (40%)
* Extend categories (`re.sre_parse.CATEGORIES`) (30%)
* Improve setup.py
* More verbose code
* Documentation
* Optimizations
* Generation of `n` different random matching string
* Memory usage reduction (100%?) - generators
* Count the number of matching strings - (100%?)
* Unicode support (100%)
* Handle grouprefs (100%)
* Python3 compatibility (100%) ( >= python3.3)
### License
```
exrex is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
exrex is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU Affero General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License
along with exrex. If not, see < http://www.gnu.org/licenses/ >.
(C) 2012- by Adam Tauber, <asciimoo@gmail.com>
```
### Fun/arts
* Boat: `exrex '( {20}(\| *\\|-{22}|\|)|\.={50}| ( ){0,5}\\\.| {12}~{39})'`
* Eyes: `exrex '(o|O|0)(_)(o|O|0)'`
### Similar projects
* [randexp.js](http://fent.github.com/randexp.js/)
* [regldg](http://regldg.com/)
* [regex-genex](https://github.com/audreyt/regex-genex)
### Profiling
* `python -m cProfile exrex.py '[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z]' -o /dev/null`
* `python -m cProfile exrex.py '[0-9]{6}' -o /dev/null`