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2021-01-21 04:05:57
30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

This course includes:

  • 3 hours on-demand video
  • 14 articles
  • 20 coding exercises
  • Full lifetime access
  • Access on mobile and TV
IT & Software Other IT & Software Regular Expressions

Regular Expressions for Beginners and Beyond! With Exercises

Learn regular expression (regex) fundamentals, or expand your existing skills
Rating: 4.7 out of 54.7 (45 ratings)
13,862 students
Created by Bonnie Schulkin
Last updated 1/2021
English
English [Auto]
30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

What you'll learn

  • Basic regular expression syntax
  • Tokens representing classes of characters
  • Using flags and greedy vs. lazy to fine-tune your regular expressions
  • Using groups for more advanced searching, plus replacing parts of strings
  • Lookahead and Lookbehind
  • All examples and exercises provided in JavaScript, Python and grep

Requirements

  • None! We will be using the regex101 web site to test our regular expressions, so all you need is a computer and web access

Description

Regular expressions have a bad reputation for being difficult to understand. This course introduces tools and a systematic approach so you can unlock the power of regular expressions to write compact, elegant code. 


Course Concepts

In this course, we will cover concepts from basic to advanced:

  • Quantifiers

  • Character collections, including negation

  • Character ranges

  • String boundaries

  • Character Classes

  • Flags

  • Greedy vs. Lazy Quantifiers

  • Multi-Character Quantifiers and Options

  • Capturing Groups (numbered and named)

  • Substitution / Replace

  • Lookahead and Lookbehind

Depending on your level of experience, you can start at the beginning, or start later with concepts you've always been interested in, but haven't had a chance to learn yet.


Course Examples

Examples progress in a logical, narrative way. At the end of one example, we will think about how we might tweak it to do something similar but more powerful. In this way, the concepts flow naturally from one example to the next.

The course has 44 examples in the course of the lectures, each written out on different platforms (JavaScript / Python / Linux (grep)) in the course repository. Each regular expression is fully commented and has test cases to show how it's intended to be used, so these are a great starting point if you like to "code by example" -- start with an example you know works and tweak it for your purposes.


Course Exercises

There are also 46 exercises using Udemy's code challenge platform. You are given a description of a regular expression, and then you write it using your choice of JavaScript or Python syntax. After you're done, tests written especially for the exercises will let you know whether your regular expressions did the job they were supposed to. These exercises are a great way to cement the concepts in your brain, and make sure you really understand the material presented in the lectures.


Course Tools

The course uses regex101 (with permission of the author) to show how regular expressions match the test strings. There are also slides breaking down each regular expression example and explaining each piece.


Questions encouraged!

Please use the Q&A feature on Udemy to ask questions! I love to talk about why regular expressions don't seem to be working, discussing decisions I made about course content, and debating regular expression philosophy.

Who this course is for:

  • Curious folks new to regular expressions
  • Developers looking to sharpen or expand their regular expression skills

Course content

12 sections • 68 lectures • 3h 21m total length

  • Preview03:24
  • Preview02:26
  • Preview06:05
  • Links Referenced in Course Content
    00:17
  • Preview01:44
  • Requested Information for Questions
    00:27

  • Explicit Characters
    05:36
  • Introduction to Quantifiers
    02:32
  • More Quantifier Examples
    03:11
  • Escaping Special Characters
    04:32
  • Curly Brace { } Quantifiers
    03:00
  • Natural Curiosity
    01:16
  • ES6 (JavaScript) Exercises for Explicit Characters and Quantifiers
    1 question
  • Python Exercises for Explicit Characters and Quantifiers
    1 question
  • Regex101 Exercises for Explicit Characters and Quantifiers
    00:46

  • Collections
    05:35
  • Character Ranges
    02:28
  • Negation
    04:39
  • ES6 (JavaScript) Exercises for Collections, Ranges and Negation
    1 question
  • Python Exercises for Colections, Ranges and Negation
    1 question
  • Regex101 Exercises for Collections, Character Ranges and Negation
    00:52

  • Backslash Revisited
    02:02
  • Specifying Whitespace Characters
    04:10
  • Introduction to String Boundaries
    02:08
  • Example Anchoring to Start of String
    05:22
  • Example Anchoring to Both Ends of String
    04:31
  • ES6 (JavaScript) Exercises for Whitespace and String Boundaries
    1 question
  • Python Exercises for Whitespace and String Boundaries
    1 question
  • Regex101 Exercises for Whitespace Characters and String Boundaries
    01:09

  • Whitespace Character Classes
    04:48
  • Other Character Classes
    02:26
  • Word Boundary Characters
    03:27
  • \b vs \W
    03:01
  • Another Character Class Example
    02:26
  • ES6 (JavaScript) Exercises for Character Classes
    1 question
  • Python Exercises for Character Classes
    1 question
  • Regex101 Exercises for Character Classes
    01:35

  • Introduction to Flags
    03:51
  • Flags Syntax
    02:36
  • Example without Flags
    02:16
  • Multi-Line and Global flags
    02:10
  • Case-Insensitive and Single-Line flags
    03:35
  • IMPORTANT: Some JavaScript Exercises not available due to Udemy limitations
    00:14
  • ES6 (JavaScript) Exercises for Flags
    1 question
  • Python Exercises for Flags
    1 question
  • Regex101 Exercises for Flags
    01:14

  • Introduction to Greedy vs. Lazy Quantifiers
    01:36
  • Useful Lazy Quantifier Example
    03:20
  • Greedy Quantifier Example
    01:23
  • Lazy Quantifier Syntax
    02:01
  • Useless Lazy Quantifier Examples
    01:58
  • Lazy Quantifier vs. Negated Collection
    02:00
  • ES6 (JavaScript) Exercises for Greedy vs. Lazy
    1 question
  • Python Exercises for Greedy vs. Lazy
    1 question
  • Regex101 Exercises for Greedy vs. Lazy
    01:17

  • Multi-Character String Options for Full Regex
    03:19
  • Groups with Multi-Character Strings
    04:37
  • Kittens Three Ways
    03:02
  • Collections within Groups
    01:44
  • Complex Multi-Character Example: 24 hr Clock Display
    06:18
  • ES6 (JavaScript) Exercises for Multi-Character Quantifiers and Options
    1 question
  • Python Exercises for Multi-Character Quantifers and Options
    1 question
  • Regex101 Exercises for Multi-Character Strings: Quantifiers and Options
    01:09

  • Introduction to Capture Groups
    04:54
  • Non-Capturing Groups
    02:36
  • Numbered Capture Groups
    06:50
  • Named Capture Groups
    03:45
  • ES6 (JavaScript) Exercises for Capture Groups
    1 question
  • Python Exercises for Capture Groups
    1 question
  • Regex101 Exercises for Capture Groups
    01:03

  • Replace with Fixed String
    03:05
  • Reference Group in Replacement
    02:48
  • Remove Regular Expression Matches from String
    03:18
  • ES6 (JavaScript) Exercises for Substitution
    1 question
  • Python Exercises for Substitution
    1 question
  • Regex101 Exercises for Substitution
    01:57

Instructor

Bonnie Schulkin
Teacher | Coder | Mediocre Bassist
Bonnie Schulkin
  • 4.6 Instructor Rating
  • 2,798 Reviews
  • 29,547 Students
  • 3 Courses

My teaching career started when I played school with my (not very willing) younger brother as a kid. I gradually expanded my horizons to teaching (marginally) more willing high school students, and more recently have taught software development at various boot camps to delightfully willing adults. I have been working in the software industry on and off since the mid-90s, which predates the birth of many coders in the San Francisco tech scene.

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