The helpful QA check all translators should learn to use.
RegEx is a particular kind of tool that I both love and hate — love, because it’s honestly a must-have part of anyone’s QA checks. Hate, because it is an absolute nightmare for me to learn. Now, to explain myself a little more, I’m terrible with programming. RegEx isn’t quite the same thing as programming, but it’s similar. And the similarity is exactly in the same area that I struggle so intensely with when it comes to programming: the language.
That being said, I came up with three working, and one failed, examples of RegEx that I’d like to share with you as I work my way through this part of translation that I have no choice but to accept.
The Successes
Finding Katakana:
Switching the first and last names:
Finding Instances of Military Time:
The Failure
My failure wasn’t a failure because it didn’t work but because it didn’t require any particular outside the box thinking. It was a simple search function. The failure? Find and replace /・ with /[space] .
May your journeys with RegEx be ever fruitful and helpful in your endeavors.