this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025
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Programming
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He did say complex regex. A complex regex is not simple.
yes, "complex" regexes are quite simple too. Complex regexes are long, not difficult. They appear complex because you have to "inline" everything. They really are not that hard.
This is stupid pedantry. By that logic literally nothing is complex because everything is made up of simple parts.
cryptic != complex. Are they cryptic? yes. Are they complex? not really, if you can understand "one or more" or "zero or more" and some other really simple concepts like "one of these" or "not one of these" or "this is optional". You could explain these to a child. It's only because they look cryptic that people think they are complex. Unless you start using backreferences and advanced concepts like those (which are not usually needed in most cases) they are very simple. long != complex
Ok I can see you haven't actually come across any complex regexes yet...
(Which is probably a good thing tbh - if you're writing complex regexes you're doing it wrong.)
i haven't come across many. But i have written a lot.