FreeBASICVerbalExpressions

Regular Expressions made easy

Verbal Expressions is a FreeBASIC module that helps to construct difficult regular expressions. It is a high level wrapper around the excellent PCRE library and will require linking to a compatible version of PCRE (as of FreeBASIC 1.09 this is PCRE 8).

This FreeBASIC module is based off of the original Javascript Verbal expressions library by jehna.

Examples

Testing if we have a valid URL

    'Create the object
    var expr = VRegex()
    with expr
        .searchOneLine()
        .startOfLine()
        ._then("http")
        .maybe("s")
        ._then("://")
        .maybe("www.")
        .anythingBut(" ")
        .endOfLine()
    end with

    if expr.test(url) then
        print url & " is a valid url."
    else
        print url & " is NOT a valid url."
    end if

    print expr

Compiling

Use the provided build scripts, build.bat for Windows and build.sh for *nix.

Installing

Copy the headers in include/freebasic to your FreeBASIC include directory. Copy the built *.a in lib to your FreeBASIC lib directory.

Using in your project

Include this library into your project with:

#include once "vregex.bi"

API

Terms

• .anything()
• .anythingBut(string value)
• .something()
• .somethingBut(string value)
• .endOfLine()
• .find(string value)
• .maybe(string value)
• .startOfLine()
• ._then(string value)

Special characters and groups

• ._any(string value)
• .anyOf(string value)
• .br()
• .lineBreak()
• .range(args() as string)
• .tab()
• .word()

Modifiers

• .withAnyCase()
• .searchOneLine()
• .searchGlobal()

Functions

• .replace(string source, string value)
• .test()

Other

• .multiple(string value)
• .alt()

Other implementations

You can view all implementations on VerbalExpressions.github.io