[kelafoja]

My problem is that regexes are write-only, unreadable once written (to me anyway). And sometimes they do more than you intended. You maybe tested on a few inputs and declared it fit for purpose, but there might be more inputs upon which it has unintended effects. I don't mind simple, straight-forward regexes. But when they become more complex, I tend to prefer to write out the procedural code, even if it is (much) longer in terms of lines. I find that generally I can read code better than regexes, and that code I write is more predictable than regexes I write.

[bazoom42]

> I tend to prefer to write out the procedural code, even if it is (much) longer in terms of lines.

This might work for you, but in general the amount of bugs is proportional to the amount of code. The regex engine is alredy throughly tested by someone else while a custom implementation in procedural code will probably have bugs and be a lot more work to maintain if the pattern changes.

[justin66]

> This might work for you, but in general the amount of bugs is proportional to the amount of code.

If you wanted to look for cases which serve as an exception to this rule, code relying on regexes would be an excellent place to start.

[kelafoja]

That is quite a generalization. The regex engine is tested, but my specific regular expression isn't. My ability to write correct regular expressions is weak, so there can be many bugs in the one line of regular expession.

[rerdavies]

In general, the correctness of the code is proportional to its readability.

I also prefer procedural code instead of regexes.

[latexr]

> unreadable once written (to me anyway). (…) there might be more inputs upon which it has unintended effects.

https://regex101.com can explain your regex back to you, and allows you to test it with more inputs.

Though I’m not trying to convince you to always use regular expressions, I agree with GP:

> Obviously regexes aren't the right tool for every job, and they can certainly be done poorly; but in the right place at the right time they're the simplest, most robust, easiest to understand solution to the problem.

[jcelerier]

What makes them unreadable to you ? 99% of the time you can just read them character by character with maybe some groups and back references

[bluecheese452]

I don’t think this is a particularly useful question. If they could accurately describe what exactly is confusing they wouldn’t be confused.

[rusk]

These are all valid criticisms of regex

but they’re not an excuse to avoid regex. Similarly git has many warts but there’s no getting around it. Same with CSS

If you want to run with the herd though you need to know these things, even enjoy them.

You can rely on tooling and training wheels like Python VERBOSE but you’re never going to get away from the fact that the “rump” of the population works with them.

Easier to bite the bullet and get practised. I’ve no doubt you have the intellect - you only need be convinced it’s a good use of your time.

[bena]

Kind of fair.

I don't incorporate a lot of regular expressions into my code. But where I do like them is for search and replace. So I do treat them as mostly disposable.

[fragmede]

You know you can write comments in your code where the regexp is, right?

[kelafoja]

You know that there are more friendly sounding ways to give this suggestion, right?