Application Expresso

In one of our PowerShell User Group meetings last year Josh Miller explored regular expressions while demonstrating some text to object conversion scripts.  In that meeting he touched on the use of a tool I had never heard of called Expresso.  When I got around to downloading it I was pretty excited for what it could do (a lot) for the price (free).  Straight from the website, here are a list of features:

• Still free of charge!
• Build complex regular expressions by selecting components from a palette
• Test expressions against real or sample input data
• Display all matches in a tree structure, showing captured groups, and all captures within a group
• Build replacement strings and test the match and replace functionality
• Highlight matched text in the input data
• Test automatically for syntax errors
• Generate Visual Basic, C#, or C++ code
• Save and restore data in a project file
• Maintain and expand a library of frequently used regular expressions
• Dramatically enhanced Analyzer
  • Analyzes and describes your regular expression in a tree structure
  • Updated continuously in a separate thread
  • Edit portions of your regular expression by selecting nodes in the Analyzer view
  • Immediate feedback on syntax errors
  • Highlight portions of your expression for partial matching
• Rich new Builder and editing features
  • Easier to use Builder
  • Support for .NET 2.0 features like character class subtraction and new Unicode classes
  • Extensive editing capabilities via context menus in both text view and Analyzer view
  • Builder can be docked or undocked from the Main Expresso window
  • Full Undo/Redo capability
• Additional New features
  • Line by line validation testing
  • Test the Regex.Split() method
  • Export match results to Excel, XML, etc.
  • Carriage return, line feed, and other invisible characters are visible in the search results
  • Drag and drop files and text
  • Insert arbitrary Unicode characters in sample text or regular expression
  • Code generation for the new C++/CLI syntax in addition to the old MC++
  • Code generation for Replacement String and templates for Replace(), Split(), Match() and other regex methods
  • Turn Tooltips on or off
  • Support for very long data files
  • Startup tips to guide new users
• Improvements and additions to the Regex Library
• Improvements to threading to allow reliable interruption of slow expression

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