VerbalExpressions is a C++11 Header library that helps to construct difficult regular expressions.

This C++ lib is based off of the (original) Javascript VerbalExpressions library by jehna.

You can see an up to date list of all ports on VerbalExpressions.github.io.

• Javascript
• Ruby
• C#
• Python
• Java
• PHP

In case you do not have C++11 compliant standard library you can still use boost.regex.

Here's a couple of simple examples to give an idea of how VerbalExpressions works:

// Create an example of how to test for correctly formed URLs
verex expr = verex()
            .search_one_line()
            .start_of_line()
            .then( "http" )
            .maybe( "s" )
            .then( "://" )
            .maybe( "www." )
            .anything_but( " " )
            .end_of_line();
// Use verex's test() function to find if it matches
std::cout << expr.test("https://www.google.com") << std::endl;
// Ouputs the actual expression used: ^(?:http)(?:s)?(?:://)(?:www.)?(?:[^ ]*)$
std::cout << expr << std::endl;

// Create a test string
std::string replaceMe = "Replace bird with a duck";
// Create an expression that seeks for word "bird"
verex expr2 = verex().find("bird");
// Execute the expression
std::cout << expr2.replace(replaceMe, "duck") << std::endl;

std::cout << verex().find( "red" ).replace( "We have a red house", "blue" ) << std::endl;

Here you can find the API documentation for Verbal Expressions

Basic usage of Verbal Expressions starts from the expression verex(). You can chain methods afterwards. Those are described under the "terms" section.

auto expr = verex();

• .anything()
• .anything_but( const std::string & value )
• .something()
• .something_but(const std::string & value)
• .end_of_line()
• .find( const std::string & value )
• .maybe( const std::string & value )
• .start_of_line()
• .then( const std::string & value )

• .any( const std::string & value )
• .any_of( const std::string & value )
• .br()
• .linebreak()
• .range( const std::vector<std::pair<std::string, std::string>> & args )
• .range( const std::std::string & a, const & std::string b )
• .tab()
• .word()

• .with_any_case()
• .search_one_line()
• .search_global()

• .replace( const std::string & source, const std::string & value )
• .test()

• .add( expression )
• .multiple( const std::string & value )
• .alt()