RegEx

This JavaScript coding example demonstrates parsing Regular Expressions.
I ignore BLANKS in the regular expressions, (I cannot read them) Use a tilde ~ as a blank.

I only handled a few expressions, the future classes will expand on the parser and on the capabilities of these examples.
The purpose of this class is to break the text into unique parsing actions. The next class will start building the action for each parse command.

The parsing code is editable. You can add a debugger; statement to the code.
click function-key F12 to open the debugger prior to running the code.

The actions are:

character by character to determine action
[...] special function to get a character set
{...} special function to get minimum and maximum repeat counts
removed the "\v" (vertical tab) - no real use. May also remove the /f (form feed) cannot find a printer that uses it
throw an exception of an invalid syntax
allow blanks in regular expression, replaced with a tilde ~

My NEW Regular Expression Syntax (to be added):

1	~	any blank or tab character
2	=>	search for next command forwards (exclusive) (Apple) => (Pear)
3	<=	search for next command backwards (exclusive) (Pear) <= (Apple)
4	`number`	any type of number
5	`real`	a real number, 6.02214E+23
6	`counting number`	a counting number (1 to +infinity) +734
7	`whole number`	a whole number (0 to +infinity) 0
8	`integer`	an Integer number (-infinity to +infinity) -734
9	`hex`	a HEX number 0xFFFF or #02AF
10	`binary`	a BINARY number 0B0110111
11	`octal`	an OCTAL number 0O377
12	`word number`	a word formatted number "five hundred and thirty"
13	`date time`,	date and time (all formats) also `date` `time, `year`, `month`, `day`, `hour`, `minute`, `second`
14	`phone`	a phone number 713-682-1556 (all formats)
15	`person name`	persons name Mr. Collins, Clif
16	`proper name`	proper name Jack and the Beanstalk
17	`upper case word`	an upper case word
18	`lower case word`	a lower case word
19	`proper case word`	a proper case word
20	`email`	an email address c.col@collinssoftware.com
21	`address`	a physical address 7710 Janak Drive Houston, Texas 77055
22	`comment`	a comment
23	'any-name(p1,...)`	call a function `myDate()`
24	`quoted text`	a single or double quoted text (see: /CSV /ESC) 'Mary''s book' or 'Mary\'s book'
25	`sentence`	a sentence
26	`phrase`	a phrase
27	`paragraph`	a paragraph
28	`not`	negate the next command
29	\()	nested parentheses "apples (1,2,3,(4,5)) oranges"
30	\{}	nested braces "function test() { ... if (a == 5) { ... } ... }"
31	/L=text	(global) set language and character set /L=Spanish (número, dirección, binario, enero, febrero, marzo, ,...)
32	/CSV	(global toggle) quotes are CSV formatted 'Mary''s book'
33	/ESC	(global toggle) quotes are ESCAPE formatted 'Mary\'s book'
34	/q	(global toggle) look inside quotes /q ( A => B)
35	/^q	(global toggle) don't look inside quotes /^q ( A => B)
36	/x	(global toggle) extract value converted, (i.e. strip quotes, convert numbers & dates, exclude outer parentheses,...)
37	/^x	(global toggle) extract value not converted (i.e. keep quotes, numbers and dates as text, include outer parentheses,... )
38	/c	(global toggle) look inside comments
39	/^c	(global toggle) ignore comments
40	/c=text	(global) comment type text = "//" // line and /* */ block comment, or text = any (line) text = (any)(any) block comment
41	//	Comments to end of line (ignored as regex)
42	/* */	in-line comment (ignored as regex)

regex_parse.js

The Regular Expression Parser

Parsing Regular Expressions