Linked – Regular Expressions Not Equal to a Smile or a Frown
“One of the nifty and powerful tools in our litigation support tool belt is “regular expressions.”
We use regular expressions to match patterns of data that we need to search for and then perhaps manipulate in some way. A few examples of easy-to-recognize “data patterns” are social security numbers (999-99-9999) and phone numbers (999-999-9999). Both values are consistent in their “data patterns” and both include a specific number of digits.”
I’m always a little surprised when I get to the point in one of my classes where we talk about regular expressions, and so many people who work in this industry have never even heard of them, let alone have any idea how to use them. I’m not going to claim to be an expert on writing regular expressions, but when I need one I can usually hit Google and figure it out again. I’ve no idea how many people go through cases where it could be useful, and simply are unaware of the tool.
You may not use it all the time, but when you need it, you’ll appreciate having it in your back pocket!
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