---
title: "[Tool] Introducing The Regulator - advanced regex tool"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/10/23/tool-introducing-the-regulator-advanced-regex-tool.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/10/23/tool-introducing-the-regulator-advanced-regex-tool.html"
published: "2003-10-23T13:16:00"
updated: "2003-10-23T13:16:00"
tags: [".Net Original", "Cool Tools"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "Yeah, I've been away too long, but here's how I'm making up for it: Introducing The Regulator : An advanced regular expression tool with expert features such as: Syntax highlighting and folding Multi threaded operations…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# \[Tool\] Introducing The Regulator - advanced regex tool

By Roy Osherove October 23, 2003 In [.Net Original](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net-original), [Cool Tools](https://osherove.com/blog/category/cool-tools)

**Historical article** · Originally published October 23, 2003; technical details may be outdated.

Yeah, I've been away too long, but here's how I'm making up for it:

Introducing **The Regulator**:

An advanced regular expression tool with expert features such as:

- Syntax highlighting ~and folding~
- Multi threaded operations : ability to cancel long running expression matches and replaces
- Search and import expressions and examples from RegexLib.com’s database, all this from within regulator
- Regex snippets: an easy and simple toolbar of frequently used text snippets
- Minimize to tray
- Ability to select part of the regex text, and only that part will be used to run the match or replace (kind of like SQL query analyzer)

Click the pic to download.

**The Regulator uses nothing but free/organic components:**

- ComponentOne Toolbars ,menus and FlexGrid (from the VB resource kit)

- Magic library (the early free version)

- The [SharpDevelop](http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/) Text control for syntax highlighting

- Standard Winforms controls

## More in .Net Original

[All posts in .Net Original](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net-original)

- Oct 26, 2003

    ### [Calling webservices asynchronously - 2 possible ways](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/10/26/calling-webservices-asynchronously-2-possible-ways.html)

- Oct 24, 2003

    ### [The Regulator won't be available while I sort this GPL thing out.](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/10/24/the-regulator-wont-be-available-while-i-sort-this-gpl-thing.html)

- Oct 15, 2003

    ### [\[Article\] on MSDNAA: Creating a Generic Site-To-Rss Tool](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/10/15/article-on-msdnaa-creating-a-generic-site-to-rss-tool.html)

- Oct 8, 2003

    ### [Introducing SiteFeeder](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/10/8/introducing-sitefeeder.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

### Social

- X: https://x.com/royosherove
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/

### Contact

- Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7

### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/