Stop Copy-Pasting Regex You Don't Understand: 5 Patterns Explained
Every developer has done it: you Google "regex for email," copy the first Stack Overflow answer, paste it into your code, and cross your fingers that it covers all edge cases. Then six months later, user+tag@domain.co.uk slips through and breaks something.
Let's fix that. Here are five regex patterns you probably copy-paste, explained so you actually understand them — and can adapt them yourself.
1. Email Validation: The Pattern Everyone Gets Wrong
[a-zA-Z0-9._%+-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9.-]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,}
