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$ easy_install exrexUsage
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$ exrex '[asdfg]'
a
s
d
f
g
$ exrex -r '(0[1-9]|1[012])-\d{2}'
09-85
$ exrex '[01]{10}' -c
1024
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)
- randexp.js (features several live demos on the website)
- rstr.xeger (a method of the
rstrPython module)
Profiling
python -m cProfile exrex.py '[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z]' -o /dev/nullpython -m cProfile exrex.py '[0-9]{6}' -o /dev/null