Learn how AI-assisted coding using ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot can dramatically increase your productivity (and fun) writing regular expressions and other programs. Regular Expression Puzzles and AI Coding Assistants is the story of two competitors. On one side is David Mertz, an expert programmer and the author of the Web's most popular Regex tutorial. On the other are the AI powerhouse coding assistants, GitHub Copilot and OpenAI ChatGPT. Here's how the contest works: David invents 24 Regex problems he calls puzzles and shows you how to tackle each one. When he's done, he has Copilot and ChatGPT work the same puzzles. What they produce intrigues him. Which side is likelier to get it right? Which will write simple and elegant code? Which makes smarter use of lesser known Regex library features? Read the book to find out. David also offers AI best practices, showing how smart prompts return better results. By the end, you'll be a master at solving your own Regex puzzles, whether you use AI or not. About the technology Groundbreaking large language model research from OpenAI, Google, Amazon, and others have transformed expectations of machine-generated software. But how do these AI assistants, like ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot, measure up against regular expressions—a workhorse technology for developers used to describe, find, and manipulate patterns in text. Regular expressions are compact, complex, and subtle. Will AI assistants handle the challenge? About the book Regular Expression Puzzles and AI Coding Assistants is the perfect starting point for programmers of any experience level who want to understand the capabilities—and the limitations—of these exciting new tools. Author David Mertz presents 24 challenging regex puzzles, their traditional human-made solutions, and the fascinating answers given by popular AI assistants. Alongside these eye-opening puzzles you’ll learn how to write prompts, integrate AI-generated coding suggestions, and interact with the assistant to get the results you want. By the end of the book, you'll have a clear understanding of where AI assistants can reliably write code for you and where you’ll still need a human touch. Plus, you’ll learn a lot about regular expressions! About the reader Code examples use simple Python and Regular Expressions. No experience with AI coding tools required. About the author David Mertz is the founder of KDM Training and an acclaimed contributor to the Python community. He is also the author of The Puzzling Quirks of Regular Expressions, Cleaning Data for Effective Data Science: Doing the Other 80% of the Work, and other books. Table of Contents 1 The map and the territory 2 Quantifiers and special sub-patterns 3 Pitfalls and sand in the gears 4 Creating functions using regex 5 Easy, difficult, and impossible tasks 6 Conclusions Appendix A: Learning to use regular expressions

This quick guide to regular expressions is a condensed code and syntax reference for an important programming technique. It demonstrates regex syntax in a well-organized format that can be used as a handy reference, showing you how to execute regexes in many languages, including JavaScript, Python, Java, and C#. The Regex Quick Syntax Reference features short, focused code examples that show you how to use regular expressions to validate user input, split strings, parse input, and match patterns. Utilizing regular expressions to deal with search/replace and filtering data for backend coding is also covered. You won’t find any bloated samples, drawn out history lessons, or witty stories in this book. What you will find is a language reference that is concise and highly accessible. The book is packed with useful information and is a must-have for any programmer. What You Will Learn Formulate an expression Work with arbitrary char classes, disjunctions, and operator precedence Execute regular expressions and visualize using finite state machines Deal with modifiers, including greedy and lazy loops Handle substring extraction from regex using Perl 6 capture groups, capture substrings, and reuse substrings Who This Book Is For If you have dealt with at least one programming language, chances are you know enough to understand regular expressions, and the examples in this book will help you develop proficiency.

This cookbook provides more than 100 recipes to help you crunch data and manipulate text with regular expressions. Every programmer can find uses for regular expressions, but their power doesn't come worry-free. Even seasoned users often suffer from poor performance, false positives, false negatives, or perplexing bugs. Regular Expressions Cookbook offers step-by-step instructions for some of the most common tasks involving this tool, with recipes for C#, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and VB.NET. With this book, you will: Understand the basics of regular expressions through a concise tutorial Use regular expressions effectively in several programming and scripting languages Learn how to validate and format input Manage words, lines, special characters, and numerical values Find solutions for using regular expressions in URLs, paths, markup, and data exchange Learn the nuances of more advanced regex features Understand how regular expressions' APIs, syntax, and behavior differ from language to language Write better regular expressions for custom needs Whether you're a novice or an experienced user, Regular Expressions Cookbook will help deepen your knowledge of this unique and irreplaceable tool. You'll learn powerful new tricks, avoid language-specific gotchas, and save valuable time with this huge library of proven solutions to difficult, real-world problems.

Supported by all major databases, scripting languages, and programming languages, regular expressions are powerful "wild-card" text-processing tools used by programmers to find, validate, modify, or edit information Covering a wide range of languages and databases-including JavaScript, ASP.

Learn to use one of the most powerful text processing and manipulation tools available Regular expression experts have long been armed with an incredibly powerful tool, one that can be used to perform all sorts of sophisticated text processing and manipulation in just about every language and on every platform. That’s the good news. The bad news is that for too long, regular expressions have been the exclusive property of only the most tech savvy. Until now. Ben Forta's Learning Regular Expressions teaches you the regular expressions that you really need to know, starting with simple text matches and working up to more complex topics, including the use of backreferences, conditional evaluation, and look-ahead processing. You’ll learn what you can use, and you’ll learn it methodically, systematically, and simply. Regular expressions are nowhere near as complex as they appear to be at first glance. All it takes is a clear understanding of the problem being solved and how to leverage regular expressions to solve them. Read and understand regular expressions Use literal text and metacharacters to build powerful search patterns Take advantage of advanced regular expression features, including lookahead and backreferences Perform powerful search-and-replace operations in all major professional editing tools Add sophisticated form and text processing to web applications Search for files using command-line tools like grep and egrep Use regular expressions in programming languages like JavaScript, Java, PHP, Python, Microsoft .NET, and C#, as well as in DBMSs including MySQL and Oracle Work with phone numbers, postal codes, social security numbers, IP addresses, URLs, email addresses, and credit card numbers Contents at a Glance 1 Introducing Regular Expressions 2 Matching Single Characters 3 Matching Sets of Characters 4 Using Metacharacters 5 Repeating Matches 6 Position Matching 7 Using Subexpressions 8 Using Backreferences 9 Looking Ahead and Behind 10 Embedding Conditions 11 Regular Expression Solutions to Common Problems Appendix A Regular Expressions in Popular Applications and Languages

*Discusses regular expressions in quick, easy manner (Friedl book is exhaustive, and other two books are superficial) *Teaches by example without exhaustive syntax explanation *Covers the major open source languages

* Only book dealing with regular expressions for Windows developers in a concise manner * Teaches beginners by example, without bogging them down in syntactical explanations; also an ideal reference for experienced developers/ programmers * Covers all of the major Windows development languages

This thorough tutorial teaches you the complete regular expression syntax. Detailed examples and descriptions of how regular expressions work on the inside, give you a deep understanding enabling you to unleash their full power. Learn how to put your new skills to use with tools such as PowerGREP and EditPad Pro, as well as programming languages such as C#, Delphi, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Visual Basic, VBScript, and more.

Whether it's for coding applications, writing scripts, parsing through CSV files, securing a web application, or even altering thousands of files at once, Regular Expressions are usually the best, most efficient option to complete the task.

bull; Demonstrates how Python is the perfect language for text-processing functions. bull; Provides practical pointers and tips that emphasize efficient, flexible, and maintainable approaches to text-processing challenges. bull; Helps programmers develop solutions for dealing with the increasing amounts of data with which we are all inundated.