Regex
Regex (short for regular expression) is a sequence of characters that defines a search pattern, used for string matching, validation, and text manipulation in programming. It provides a concise and flexible way to identify, extract, or replace specific patterns within text data, such as email addresses, phone numbers, or keywords. Regex is implemented as a feature in many programming languages and tools, enabling developers to perform complex text processing tasks efficiently.
Developers should learn regex for tasks involving text parsing, data validation, and search operations, such as validating user input in forms, extracting information from logs or documents, and cleaning or transforming data in scripts. It is particularly useful in scenarios like web scraping, log analysis, and configuration file processing, where precise pattern matching is required without heavy dependencies on external libraries. However, for complex parsing tasks like HTML or JSON, dedicated parsers are recommended over regex-only approaches to avoid pitfalls and maintainability issues.