Regular Expressions
Regular expressions (regex) are a sequence of characters that define a search pattern, used for string matching, validation, and text manipulation in programming. They provide a concise and flexible means to match, search, and replace text based on specific patterns, such as email addresses, phone numbers, or keywords. Regex is implemented in many programming languages and tools, enabling developers to perform complex text processing tasks efficiently.
Developers should learn regex for tasks like data validation (e.g., checking user input formats), text parsing (e.g., extracting information from logs or documents), and search-and-replace operations in code or data. It is essential in scenarios involving pattern-based string handling, such as web scraping, form validation, and data cleaning, where manual string methods would be inefficient or error-prone.