It is well known that regular expressions are powerful. But it is also known that the syntax is a bit awkward.
For example, each time I use them, I find asking myself which of ^ and $ is the start of string (respectively end of string) metacharacter.
I know that a quick google search or a simple cheat sheet may answer this, but yet I wonder if anyone knows a good mnemonic tip.
I don't know a help for those anchors, but as long as you operate on the whole string and don't use the multi line modifier m (depends on your regex flavor) you can use in most flavors \A and \z (or \Z) for the same purpose.
Those are more intuitive to use, A us the start and Z is the end.
\A The beginning of the input
\Z The end of the input but for the final terminator, if any
\z The end of the input
Late answer but I just had a talk about the exact same subject with people in various place on the internet. Here is what we found so far.
So, let’s begin with a masonry analogy. The caret (^) looks like a house roof. So let’s say that first you build the roof, then you get paid (got the $).
Similarly, people mentioned that money always comes at the end, although some thought that it was not the case in some mafia business, so this is possibly a confusing mnemonic. Variation : « you will be paid in the end ».
A simple, easy to remember one: « ^ looks like a star(t) ».
