Hi,
I´m a student of C# programming, and i am nearly finishing the basic module. The last topic is regular expressions , and the Regex method. I’m studying a lot, but this module is very big and very complex. I would like to know about the use of Regular expressions in GameDev, because i can’t see a clear use for this method. I really need learn regular expressions, or can i skip this module?
Thanks!!
The main uses of Regex is to parse, search, or validate strings.
In my opinion, RegEx has limited usefulness in a game environment. Unless you’re doing an old-school text-only game ala Zork. Might be useful there.
I wouldn’t skip the module, though. Maybe skim it, just so you’re familiar with the high-level ideas so if the occasion arises in the future, you’ll know what you don’t know.
At a quick glance it could be useful as part of a save / load data system. The fact that I haven’t seen one based on it indicates there are more useful ways to do this.
You probably won’t be using regular expressions on a daily basis (specially for making games); however it’s a good idea to have an understanding of them because at some point you might encounter a situation where you may need them. It’s like having a tool, you know it’s there and you only use it when you have too.
As far as implementation a while back I saw someone write a game that would create a procedurally generate a level from a string. Basically he was parsing the string with a regular expression in order to extract parameters that were used to generate the level.