What is Regex? A Guide to Regular Expressions
What is Regex? A Guide to Regular Expressions Regex, short for regular expressions, is a sequence of characters that defines a search pattern. It's a powerful tool used for matching, manipulating, and validating text. Unlike simple text searches, regex allows you to find patterns, such as all email addresses, phone numbers, or specific data formats within a larger body of text. How Regex Works A regex pattern is composed of two main types of characters: Literal Characters: These are characters that match themselves directly (e.g., a , 1 , _ ). Metacharacters: These are special characters that have a unique meaning and give regex its power (e.g., . for any character, * for zero or more occurrences). Why Use Regex in Google Looker Studio? Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) uses regex to transform data. This is essential for: Data Cleaning: Standardizing text entries. Filtering: Precisely selecting data rows that match a specific pattern. Extraction: Pulling out spe...