regex –make option

Get a ready regex

The –make option is described by its author as “a remedy for headaches.” It outputs a regexp for one of several common patterns that are given as arguments, as listed in table.

List of ready regexps available in txt2regex

Argument Description
date This argument matches dates in mm/dd/yyyy format, from 00/00/0000 to 99/99/9999.
date2 This argument matches dates in mm/dd/yyyy format, from 00/00/1000 to 19/39/2999.
date3 This argument matches dates in mm/dd/yyyy format, from 00/00/1000 to 12/31/2999.
hour This argument matches time in hh:mm format, from 00:00 to 99:99.
hour2 This argument matches time in hh:mm format, from 00:00 to 29:59.
hour3 This argument matches time in hh:mm format, from 00:00 to 23:59.
number This argument matches any positive or negative integer.
number2 This argument matches any positive or negative integer with an optional floating-point value.
number3 This argument matches any positive or negative integer with optional commas and an optional floating-point value.

For example, you can use this to get a ready regexp for any valid hour in military time, as shown in listing.

Listing. Getting a date regexp with txt2regex

$ txt2regex --make hour3
RegEx perl    : ([01][0-9]|2[0123]):[012345][0-9]
RegEx php     : ([01][0-9]|2[0123]):[012345][0-9]
RegEx postgres: ([01][0-9]|2[0123]):[012345][0-9]
RegEx python  : ([01][0-9]|2[0123]):[012345][0-9]
RegEx sed     : ([01][0-9]|2[0123]):[012345][0-9]
RegEx vim     : ([01][0-9]|2[0123]):[012345][0-9]

$