How difficult would you say regular expressions are?

[kwerk]

This isn't really a technical question more a general one.

How difficult would you say regex is? I can do what I need to do but to be honest I don't fully understand what's going on beyond a basic level. I pretty much brute force experiment with a regex tester until it works. I mean i look at some of the expressions I've made and have no clue what it does at a glance. It's hard to get my head around it, just took me 2 hours to figure out negative lookbacks.

Is it considered a good achievement to master regular expressions?

 

[D.P.]

How long is a piece of string? The standard stuff is dead easy but there are a of complexities if you dive deep. It sent require expert know.edge though.

 

[Strife212]

 

[Freakbro]

^ Excellent!

 

[Derek W]

Kristen Stewart makes regular expressions look difficult.

 

[illuz]

LOL! Regular expressions are very handy to know

 

[orderoftheflame]

http://regexpal.com

 

[dfarrall]

They are very easy for what most people need, best way is to make a cheat sheet with them all on. But as above, they are as complex as you can make them if you want.