Regular Expression for Parsing Phone Numbers

2011-11-04T13:59:00-05:00

This regular expression will parse most phone numbers into four groups: country code, area code, number, and extension. It works most of the time, see the examples below.

Here's the expression:

``` bash

^(?:[\+]?[\(]?([\d]{1,3})[\s\-\.\)]+)?(?:[\(]?([\d]{1,3})[\s\-\/\)]+)([2-9][0-9\s\-\.]{6,}[0-9])(?:[\s\D]+([\d]{1,5}))?$

```

Again, as a Java string:

``` java

"^(?:[\\+]?[\\(]?([\\d]{1,3})[\\s\\-\\.\\)]+)?(?:[\\(]?([\\d]{1,3})[\\s\\-\\/\\)]+)([2-9][0-9\\s\\-\\.]{6,}[0-9])(?:[\\s\\D]+([\\d]{1,5}))?$"

```

Results:

Target String	matches()	group(0)	group(1)	group(2)	group(3)	group(4)
011-656-555-1234	Yes	011-656-555-1234	011	656	555-1234
(217)555-1234	Yes	(217)555-1234		217	555-1234
(907) 555-1234	Yes	(907) 555-1234		907	555-1234
+82-10-5551-2345	Yes	+82-10-5551-2345	82	10	5551-2345
+(82) 10-5551-2345	Yes	+(82) 10-5551-2345	82	10	5551-2345
+886-2-55512345	Yes	+886-2-55512345	886	2	55512345
1-416-555-1234 ext 1234	Yes	1-416-555-1234 ext 1234	1	416	555-1234	1234
714 555 1234 / 1234	Yes	714 555 1234 / 1234		714	555 1234	1234
+1-714-555-1234	Yes	+1-714-555-1234	1	714	555-1234
+(82) 10-5326-5760	Yes	+(82) 10-5326-5760	82	10	5326-5760

Textmate-like fuzzy finder in RubyMine

2011-09-28T11:13:00-05:00

I just discovered, after months of RubyMine use, that the GoTo functions work like fuzzyfinder in Textmate. There are a lot of useful shortcuts under the GoTo menu; the ones I am finding most useful are Ctrl+Shft+N for finding and opening a file, Ctrl+N for a class, and Alt+Shft+N for jumping to a corresponding Rails object. For instance, if I am in the People controller, I can jump to the Person model, People views, etc, bringing me that much closer to fulfilling my dream of never having to leave the keyboard when developing.

Google+

2011-07-01T00:00:00-05:00

Yesterday was my birthday, and -- what do you know? -- I got an invitation to join Google+. Pretty exciting! I was one of the first of my friends to get on, so I had the opportunity to invite a lot of my buddies and colleagues. My inbox stayed full today with notices from Google that another one of my contacts had joined the network, and would I like to add her to one of my circles. Circles, by the way, are what sets Google+ apart from other services in this space. As a friend pointed out today, Google+ is kind of like a combination of Twitter and Facebook. You don't friend people like in Facebook; you follow them like on Twitter. Come to think of it, all day people have been comparing Google+ to Facebook, but it's actually a lot more like Twitter than one would think at first glance.

Another feature I really like, related to circles, is the stream. Streams are like the Facebook news feed, except they only contain posts and updates from members of a particular circle. I love that I can separate my feeds that way. When I started putting people into circles, it was based on their role in my life: colleagues, friends, family, &c, &c. But now I am reorganizing my circles based on what kind of streams they will produce. For example, some contacts only posts jokes, funny videos, and whatnot, so I've created a new circle called funny for them. For those who generally share information about computers, I've created a group called computers. See where I'm going with this?

I just started this evening with sparks. Sparks are lists of topics I am interested in, and streams associated with that topic. I'm not really sure what their importance is yet, but I have a few just in case it's useful to.

So that's my first impression of Google+. If you want to connect, visit my profile and add me to a circle. Cheers.

Starting My Blog Over with Jekyll

2011-06-27T00:00:00-05:00

I started using Wordpress to design my blog because I like the all the free stuff I got out of the box. It is definitely the best turn-key blogging software solution out there -- at least it was when I set up my site a year or so ago. What I really liked about Wordpress was the plethora of nice looking, free themes out there. It was really easy to set up a cool looking blog in just a few minutes.

Nowadays I think that all the Wordpress provides is probably overkill for my little blog here. What I want now is simplicity. And I found that with Jekyll. Jekyll is not a blogging software solution like Wordpress. It's a static HTML generator that allows me to write my posts in textile or markdown, and I can check my code in at GitHub. It's a workflow I am used to. Super simple. Very clean. I like it.

Thanks to Tom Preston-Werner for sharing.

Removing a service from all run levels on Ubuntu 10.04

2011-05-10T00:00:00-05:00

If postgres is running, stop it

``` bash

sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql-8.4 stop

```

Or do it the proper way

``` bash

sudo service postgresql-8.4 stop

```

Remove it from rc.d

``` bash

sudo update-rc.d postgresql-8.4 remove
  update-rc.d: /etc/init.d/postgresql-8.4 exists during rc.d purge (use -f to force)

```

This time with force!

``` bash

sudo update-rc.d -f postgresql-8.4 remove
  Removing any system startup links for /etc/init.d/postgresql-8.4 ...
    /etc/rc0.d/K19postgresql-8.4
    /etc/rc1.d/K19postgresql-8.4
    /etc/rc2.d/S19postgresql-8.4
    /etc/rc3.d/S19postgresql-8.4
    /etc/rc4.d/S19postgresql-8.4
    /etc/rc5.d/S19postgresql-8.4
    /etc/rc6.d/K19postgresql-8.4

```

That's it.

Installing PostgreSQL-8.2 on Ubuntu 10.04

2011-05-10T00:00:00-05:00

First, add the Hardy repositories to apt-get sources. If this file does not already exist, create it.

``` bash

sudo vim /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hardy.list

```

Add the Hardy repos.

``` bash

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy universe
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates universe
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-security universe

```

Update apt-get, and install.

``` bash

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install postgres-8.2
  Reading package lists... Done
  Building dependency tree       
  Reading state information... Done
  Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
  requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
  distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
  or been moved out of Incoming.
  The following information may help to resolve the situation:

  The following packages have unmet dependencies:
    postgresql-8.2: Depends: libkrb53 (>= 1.6.dfsg.2) but it is not installable
  E: Broken packages

```

That's not good. It turns out libkrb53 has been replaced by libkrb5-3 in Ubuntu 10.04. To make matters worse, the old libkrb53 package was split up into several other packages (libkrb5-3 for libkrb5 itself, but also libgssapi-krb5-2, libk5crypto3, and libkrb5support0).

Here's the fix (see Bug #462059). Use equivs to generate a fake transitional libkrb53 package.

Create a dummy file called libkrb.txt, with this text:

``` bash

Package: libkrb53
Version: 1.6.dfsg.2+fake1
Depends: libkrb5-3, libgssapi-krb5-2, libk5crypto3, libkrb5support0

```

Run equivs-build on the dummy file. (You may have to sudo apt-get install equivs first.)

``` bash

sudo equivs-build krb.txt

```

This will generate the file libkrb53_1.6.dfsg.2+fake1_all.deb. Install the resulting .deb.

``` bash

sudo dpkg -i libkrb53_1.6.dfsg.2+fake1_all.deb

```

Now install postgresql-8.2; it's dependencies are resolved.

``` bash

sudo apt-get install postgresql-8.2
  Reading package lists... Done  
  Building dependency tree       
  Reading state information... Done
  Suggested packages:
    oidentd ident-server
  The following NEW packages will be installed:
    postgresql-8.2
  ...
  ...
  ...
  Starting PostgreSQL 8.2 database server

```

Done!

Recursively delete .svn directories

2011-04-25T00:00:00-05:00

Finding all the .svn directories is easy

``` bash

$ find . -type d -name .svn
./.svn
./sourceA/.svn
./sourceB/.svn
./sourceB/module/.svn
./sourceC/.svn

```

Now use command substitution with rm -rf.

``` bash

rm -rf `find . -type d -name .svn`

```

Note the use of the backtick symbol (located under the ~ on the English keyboard)—that is not a single quote.