RegEx Enhancement

SQL.Dave

It would be very handy to have RegEx test functionality in the alert configuration screen. This could be something as simple as including in the help content the correct settings for the regexlib.com RegEx tester. Another alternative could be a hyperlink to a Red Gate Web page that tests Reg Ex expressions against user-supplied content using SQL Monitor's RegEx engine.

This enhancement would prevent guessing about RegEx syntax that might be supported by the SQL Monitor RegEx engine. Right now, I'm left with entering a RegEx expression and waiting until the situation in which the alert would normally be raised to see if my RegEx actually worked.

Chris Spencer

Hi

We use the standard .NET regular expression library (System.Text.RegularExpressions I believe) to implement this functionality and we do validate the expressions entered to ensure they are well-formed. For example, entering [[ will display an error message 'Not a valid regular expression'.

Another option is to use free third-party RegEx creation/testing applications.
http://www.ultrapico.com/Expresso.htm
http://www.regexbuddy.com/

Does this sound adequate? If not then I will definitely raise an enhancement request.

Regards
Chris

SQL.Dave

Unfortunately, simply checking the regular expression syntax doesn't tell the user if the regular expression will identify the desired text.

Example: I want to filter out long-running query alerts caused by xp_sqlmaint. Depending on which server the job is running, xp_sqlmaint may be entered in the TSQL code as xp_sqlmaint or xp_SQLMaint. Will (?i)xp_sqlmaint work for the regex filter? Do I need to specify xp_[Ss][Qq][Ll][Mm]aint? A syntax check alone does not tell me the answer.

A third-party regex application could work. That's why I originally suggested the regex tester on regexlib.com (your help file already has a link to regexlib.com). The problem is that regex testers have configuration options for things such as case-sensitivity. As a DBA (not a .NET coder), I have no idea what options I should set on a third-party testing tool so it emulates the .NET regex library.

I would appreciate an enhancement request that at least identifies the settings for a given third-party regex tester that will guarantee that tests performed there will behave the same way in the SQL Monitor software. This will prevent a lot of trial and error when tuning SQL Monitor alerts.

BTW, regexbuddy is very reasonably priced at $40, but it's not free.

Chris Spencer

Hi

An enhancement request has been raised (ref SRP-3143). We'll investigate and see what options are open to us.

Thanks for the feedback.
Chris