Zig Regex

A regex engine for zig that compiles an expression at comptime and requires 0 dynamic allocation at runtime.

WIP

Is it well tested?

No.

Is it fast?

Maybe? Haven't checked, probably not though. Other than taking advantage of comptime to allow for 0 dynamic allocation at runtime the implementation doesn't really do anything clever.

Usage

const compile = @import("regex").compile;

const expression = "abc$"; // Must be known at comptime

pub fn main() !void {
    comptime var rex = compile(expression).init();
    const m = rex.matches("1234abc");
    std.debug.print("matches: {}\n", .{m}); // Prints: `true`
}

Supported Syntax

• Literals (match a single character)

• Character Sets

  • [abc] - 'a' or 'b' or 'c'
  • [^abc] - not any of 'a' or 'b' or 'c'
  • [a-zA-Z] - any character from a through (inclusive) z or A through Z

• Groups

  • (abcd)+ - Matches the string abcd 1 or more times

• Suffixes:

  • ? - preceding rule is optional (literal, character set, group)
  • * - preceding rule is repeated 0 or more times (literal, character set, group, etc.)
  • + - preceding rule is repeated 1 or more times (literal, character set, group, etc.)

• Special Characters

  • . - non line break character ([^\r\n])
  • ^ - matches the start of the input
  • $ - matches the end of the input

• Escape Sequences

  • \w - word ([A-Za-z0-9_])
  • \W - not word ([^A-Za-z0-9_])
  • \d - digit ([0-9])
  • \D - not digit ([^0-9])
  • \s - whitespace (spaces, tabs, line breaks)

• Escaped Literals

  • \0 - null
  • \r - carriage return
  • \f - form feed
  • \v - vertical tab
  • \n - line feed
  • \t - tab
  • +*?^$\.[]{}()|/ - must be escaped for literal
  • \-] - need to be escaped for literal in character set

• Repeat Ranges

  • {1,3} - matches the preceding rule 1 through 3 times inclusive.
  • {,3} - matches the preceding rule 0 through 3 times inclusive.
  • {1,} - matches the preceding rule 1 or more times (up to max usize).

• Or

  • abc|def|ghi matches "abc", "def", or "ghi"

Not Yet Implemented

• look ahead/behind