Regexpal

Test and debug regex patterns against sample text. Use when checking match groups, validating patterns, generating replacements, linting syntax.

A real regex tester and toolkit for the terminal. Test patterns against text, find matches in files with highlighted output, perform replacements, extract capturing groups, and get human-readable explanations of regex syntax.

Commands

Command	Description
regexpal test <pattern> <text>	Test if a regex matches text — reports full match, partial match, groups, and named groups
regexpal match <pattern> <file>	Find all matches in a file — highlights matches in red, shows line numbers and match count
regexpal replace <pattern> <replacement> <file>	Replace all matches in a file and output to stdout. Supports backreferences (\1, \2)
regexpal extract <pattern> <file>	Extract capturing groups from all matches in a file — shows each group value per match
regexpal explain <pattern>	Break down a regex pattern — lists character classes, groups, tokens, and quantifiers

Requirements

• python3 (uses re stdlib module)

Examples

# Test a pattern
regexpal test '^\d{3}-\d{4}$' '123-4567'

# Find emails in a file
regexpal match '\w+@[\w.-]+' contacts.txt

# Replace version numbers
regexpal replace 'v(\d+)\.(\d+)' 'v\1.$((\\2+1))' changelog.md

# Extract domain parts from emails
regexpal extract '(\w+)@(\w+\.\w+)' emails.txt

# Understand a complex pattern
regexpal explain '(?<=@)[\w.-]+'