Groovy Console App and WIDE

In April 2008, I blogged about the WIDE: web-enabled IDE. I wondered if web tools might augment some of the standard stuff available in the IDEs.

(I realize many have 'scratchpads' but I wanted something more. Also, by environment, I don't mean a single app).

In particular, I've thought about a website dedicated to string and regex utilities. Whenever I find myself writing a little script to parse a data string, or to toy with a regex, I always think "there must be a better way".

Well, we're one huge step closer: check out the Groovy Web Console, by Guillaume Laforge.

It laughs at basic string utilities:

def s = "does this string fit into a 32-char column?"
println s.size()

And provides a test-bed for regular expressions:

(Note, this is a Java-Groovy hybrid. It's only somewhat 'Groovy'. Making it Groovier is left to the reader)

import java.util.regex.Pattern

def s = "1 - 314-867- 5309"
def p = Pattern.compile(/.*1.*(\d\d\d).*(\d\d\d).*(\d\d\d\d).*/)
def m = p.matcher(s)
if (m.matches()) {
  println "area code = ${m[0][1]}"
  println "exchange = ${m[0][2]}"
  println "digits = ${m[0][3]}"
}

Count me in... I'm definitely going to have this site at hand in my environment.