Creating Regular Expression Assemblies

Regex Studio gives you the power to compile your own Regex Assemblies. This is a little known feature of .Net, in which a regular expression can be compiled and stored in a dynamic link library (DLL). This allows for the greatest speed, because the regular expression is pre compiled, and it also allows for separation of regular expression logic. For larger projects, you can store all your regular expressions in a separate assembly. With Regex Studio you can take care of creating, editing, maintaining and compiling your regular expression library.

This is what the Compile Tab looks like:

Creating a Project

In order to create a dedicated regular expression library, you must use Regex Studio in project mode. Choose the New Project from the File menu. You can then choose the “Save As” option to provide a default name for your project.

Edit and test your regular expressions as you normally would. Once you have completed your testing, use the “Add To Library” feature from the Tools menu, or click on the Ad To Library link above the regex field. The Add To Library dialog box is displayed, which has the name, regular expression, notes and sample text on the first (“General”) tab. The second tab allows you to set all the Regex options and choose if the regex is to be included in the compiled library (more on this in a moment).

In order to add a regular expression to a library, it must contain a name. This name is how you reference it in your code, later on.

Once you have added a regular expression, the Compile tab will automatically be selected. You’ll see your new regular expression listed in the Inclusion List on the left hand side. A checkbox next to the item allows for a specific regex to be included in a compiled regex. This relates to the “Include in compiled library” checkbox in the Add To Library dialog box. You can have multiple regular expressions in a library, however you might not want to include all of them in a compiled assembly. Only the checked items are included in the compiled regex.

Setting Assembly Options

The right side of the Compile tab contains options for the creation of your regular expression assembly. This includes the following information:

Filename: This is the filename of the generated regular expression. The extension “.dll” will automatically be added.

Namespace: This is the namespace to generate the regex in.

Version: This is the version information for the assembly. You can specify just a major and a minor (“1.0”). You can include up to four digits, in standard .net notation. For example: 2.1.3.6.

Protection: The protection for the regular expression elements. This can be either Public (the default) or Private.