Tinker for Quick Regex Validation Before Committing

Testing regex patterns before committing them? Don’t fire up a whole test suite. Use tinker --execute for instant validation.

The Fast Way

Laravel’s tinker has an --execute flag that runs code and exits. Perfect for one-liner regex tests:

php artisan tinker --execute="var_dump(preg_match('/^(?=.*cat)(?=.*dog)/', 'cat and dog'))"

Output: int(1) (match found)

Try another:

php artisan tinker --execute="var_dump(preg_match('/^(?=.*cat)(?=.*dog)/', 'only cat here'))"

Output: int(0) (no match)

Why It’s Better

No need to:

• Write a test file
• Create a route
• Open an interactive REPL session
• Fire up PHPUnit

Just run, check output, adjust pattern, run again. Fast feedback loop.

Takeaway

Use tinker --execute for quick regex (and other code) validation. It runs in your app context with all your dependencies loaded. Way faster than writing throwaway test files.