Patterns - The Regex App App Reviews

I very often open patterns to test hairy regular expressons. I use it and its handy reference sheet all the time. I make use of match mode and replace mode. It is a very good way to test and debug regular expressions. Its big simple UI is a pleasure.

Just paste in the sample text to match and play with the regular expression until it matches perfectly. Then select your programming language and copy the code straight to your editor. Takes the learning curve out of code creation allowing you concentrate on the regular expression development.

Best option for testing your regexp!

Nice app, 1. It would be great to have matches splitted by groups somethere in UI. 2. Regexps in python look much better as r”d+” rather than “d+”

I use regexp in PHP scripts in order to match and get part of text within brackets. "Reggy" (a free app) show matched parts by code in brackets with a different colour. In "Patterns" app I can see if everything matches, but the match into brackets. For ex. #<div class="test">([[:digit:]]+)</div>#, will enlight the whole div tag, but the digits expected within the brackets in a different way. Also, I use very large regexp (10+ rows), so I would like to make the regexp font smaller.

Nice app, works really fine and useful for checking regex with several capture groups or fields extraction, event with names (using the "(?<field_name>….)” syntax ) that you can check with the “replaca” tab. Actually the only problem is the fixed font, really big…. but works fine!

I need to find text in a web page source file using regex. I would paste in the source text of the web page file and try searching on it using Patterns. Unfortunately Patterns would crash every time. Page source files I guess are too much text for Patterns to process, otherwise a great application. Disappointed.

This app does not support multiple languages as claimed - at least not Python which is a few unique syntax variations. Nor does it show group matches. Pythex was down, so I though I’d try this. Even without the direct Python support, not too useful without the group display. If you already know how to write regexes, you don’t need this.

The icon has the circle with the slash through it after updating to Sierra. Uninstalled & reinstalled. Still has the problem. Great app, but it needs to be updated. Unfortunately, given that the last update was in 2012, I think this is a dead app.

Easily the best Regexp utility for Mac. Highly recommend.

Patterns is great. There is, however, a small bug that you may discover. In certain cases, while typing a regex, you’ll crash the application and it won’t start up again because it tries to restore the last thing you typed and enters a crash loop. To fix it temporarily, open Terminal and use these commands: defaults read com.krill.Patterns lastRegex defaults write com.krill.Patterns lastRegex "" This first command prints out your previously entered regex (for your reference) and then clears it from the app’s preferences so it can start normally. (Note that it does include extra backslash escapes, you’ll have to strip those yourself.) You can then fix the regex (BEFORE pasting it back into Patterns) and resume where you left off. I’ll be contacting Patterns to get the root issue fixed as well, but in the meantime this may help someone.

I’ve used regular expressions off and on for the past few decades - they are indispensable for certain tasks, and huge time savers in others. But I don’t use them constantly, which means I often need a quick refresher to get things working just right. That’s where this nicely crafted app comes in. I find it a quick, and intuitive way to re-familiarize myself with the arcane workings of regex expressions. My compliments to Nikolai Krill for creating this gem!

App could be very helpful if it supported the full range of regex syntax — for example, number limits/quantifiers. Please keep developing the app!

Finally, the ref sheet scrolling issue :D

Working with Regex cant get much easier than this! Very clean and intuiative User Interface.

Thanks, a handy tool. Id make two suggestions for a nicer user experience: 1 - Change the apps icon to something that reflects patterns/regex. When using different apps duting development, the search icon could be confused for a general search utility. 2- Just like the convenient copy button, a button to clear the pattern and text would be great.

Im looking for a regex utility that helps me identify so-called "catastrophic backtracking" situations. Could this help?

What is this exaclty supposed todo....it worthless and a waste of money

I love regular expressions; when applied correctly, they can greatly simplify your code as you search for/parse/replace text. They can be a real pain, though, as they become more complex. Patterns make getting your regexes correct a lot easier. The interactive highlighting makes debugging your regexes simpler--you can back up and go forward to see where youve gone awry. Great tool. Would love to see support for capture groups.

Thanks for fixing the Reference Sheet!