Regular expression tips

What is RegEx all about?

Regular Expressions - also known as "RegEx" - are strings of text used to match patterns in other strings. The classic example is a search string that uses "wild cards" such as an "*" or "?" (which are also used in "regular" regular expressions). VB.NET has much better support for RegEx than VB 6. If you're looking for information about how to use it in VB.NET, About Visual Basic has that too.
To get the basic idea behind RegEx, open a "Search" in Windows Explorer to look for a file on your computer. Enter "*.ico" into the "All or part of the file name" text box (the "word or phrase" text box doesn't support wild card characters). You should get a list of hundreds of "icon" files if you search your whole computer. The "*" wild card will "match" any file name and the ".ico" will "match" icon files that end in just those characters.