The other day, I was searching my archive and I stumbled upon some very interesting things. One of these things was a forgotten PCRE library which I mainly use during my efforts to make an IRC message parser

I remembered that I didn't quite knew any regex editors out there built for OS X. A google search came up with nothing on the matter (although there are some pretty decent editors for Windows). So I decided to learn regular expessions by building an application that uses them.

The result of this effort is an application that has a VERY limitd functionality. It is used only to find a text inside some other text that is described by a regular expression. I use it mainly for debugging purposes. Later on, I may update it, but I think that many people will find it useful the way it is now. So I am publishing it.I also updated the AGRegex framework (Perl Regular Expressions for OS X). The AGRegex framework did not originate by me. The original framework was using PCRE library version 4.3, which is really old. With some effor, I managed to make it use PCRE 6.7. Although still old, it is certainly more advanced than the original. Look below for the links.

--Soulstorm's OS X RegexEdit
--Updated AGRegex.framework for OS X

Have you ever stumbled upon a simple problem that requires you to search a particular word or phrase inside a big chunk of text? Well, sure you have. That's why every programming language provides searching capabilities in strings, after al!

But what happens when you need to locate a specific pattern inside a big chunk of text? Such patterns include an e-mail address, or an IP addres. Patterns do not have specific characters in them, but they are recognizable inside a text by the human eye. But how can you spot them inside a text using a programming language?

 That's where regular expressions come handy.