Exrex - Irregular Methods On 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.

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:
$ pip install exrex
or
$ easy_install exrex

Usage

as python module
>>> 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
Documentation
http://exrex.readthedocs.org/en/latest/

Fun/arts
  • Boat: exrex '( {20}(\| *\\|-{22}|\|)|\.={50}| ( ){0,5}\\\.| {12}~{39})'
  • Eyes: exrex '(o|O|0)(_)(o|O|0)'

Similar projects
Tools that generate a list of all possible strings that match a given pattern:
  • regldg (features a live demo on the website)
  • regex-genex (supports using multiple regex patterns simultaneously)
Tools that generate random strings, one by one, that match a given pattern:
  • randexp.js (features several live demos on the website)
  • rstr.xeger (a method of the rstr Python module)

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


Exrex - Irregular Methods On Regular Expressions Exrex - Irregular Methods On Regular Expressions Reviewed by Zion3R on 5:58 PM Rating: 5