Regex Robin

Regex Robin is a VS Code extension that allows you to customize the appearance of text in your editor using regex patterns, as well as creating links and hover messages.

Configuration

You can configure rules like this:

{
  "regexrobin.rules": [
    {
      "regex": "ISSUE-\\d+",
      "tree": { "group": "Jira links" },
      "editor": [
        {
          "link": "https://myorg.atlassian.net/browse/$0",
          "color": "#66D9EF",
          "hoverMessage": "Jira ticket **$0**"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Combined with similar rules to match markdown links, and "TODO" and "NOTE" comments, it leads to the following experience:

The above example uses:

• The tree view to display the matches in the sidebar
• The "link" feature to create clickable links for issues
• Custom styling to highlight the matches
• The inlineReplacement feature to hide the URL of the markdown link

More examples are documented in the example configuration, as well as the "templates" feature for reusing complex regex patterns.

Rule precedence

Styles

Styles are applied in the order they are defined. Styles can overlap.

With the example config below, the text "hello world" would have a red "hello" and a blue "world".

{
  "regexrobin.rules": [
    {
      "regex": "hello world",
      "editor": [{ "color": "red" }]
    },
    {
      "regex": "world",
      "editor": [{ "color": "blue" }]
    }
  ]
}

If we reverse the order of these rules, then the entire text would be red.

Links

When two link rules apply to the same text, the one defined last wins.

{
  "regexrobin.rules": [
    // Match links like repo-name#22 to the relevant pull request
    {
      "regex": "([a-z_-]+)#(\\d+)",
      "regexFlags": { "ignoreCase": true },
      "editor": [{ "link": "https://github.com/myorg/$1/pull/$2" }]
    },
    // Match links like special-case#22 to the relevant pull request,
    // which is in a different github organisation, and has a long,
    // inconvenient name.
    {
      "regex": "special-case#(\\d+)",
      "editor": [
        {
          "link": "https://github.com/someorg/really-long-inconvenient-name/pull/$1"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

The second rule is the one that would take effect for the text "special-case#22", despite the fact that the regex for both rules match the text.

Limitations

If you have "Word wrap" enabled, any extra lines created by long text being wrapped will still be visible when using the inlineReplacement feature to replace it with something shorter, even if the replacement fits on one line.

Troubleshooting

Extension fails to load with error "Invalid flags: dg"

This error has been observed when another installed extension polyfills the String.prototype.matchAll function with a non-standard implementation, breaking Regex Robin. This is a known issue with the popular extension "Todo Tree".

The solution is to disable the extension that is causing the issue. VSCode's "Extension Bisect" feature can help you find the offending extension.

Absolute filepaths on Windows

Absolute filepaths need to be prepended with file://:

- "link": "${workspaceFolder}/path/to/my/file.md"
+ "link": "file:///${workspaceFolder}/path/to/my/file.md"

See this issue.

The logo

The logo was generated using DALL·E 2.

Contributing

Read the contributing doc for direction around setting up the extension for development and debugging.

If you're extending the extension's configuration options, look into the build:config script - it generates the JSON schema for the TypeScript definitions to avoid duplicate work.