[dahart]

The funny part (to me) is that it was already obvious you use Linux or mac -- some flavor of (star)nix -- because you said you keep a Windows install at the ready. That implies to me that Windows isn't your primary OS. I keep a Windows install at the ready too, for a whole bunch of reasons that have nothing to do with how much I like or dislike Windows.

I would love to be able to remember regex specifics from lib to lib and app to app, but try as I might, I can't. I never know if I have lookaheads or backrefs or named captures available and what the syntax is, I can't remember if there are named character classes. I end up reading the docs, again, almost every time I dig into a regex problem. Same reason for me- I use too many flavors of regex libs. If I could stick to one language, I'd have some hope.

I haven't tried RegexBuddy, but now I'm going to because of your comment, thanks for sharing!

[squeaky-clean]

I highly recommend it if you have to deal with regex a lot. I really wish it was open-source, or there was some OSS alternative as good as it, but oh well. The tools linked above are great for simpler usage.

The built in regex step-debugger is also great, though I've learned that if I have to rely on that, it's probably not a task well suited to regex.