I was in the same situation the other day and came across:
http://www.txt2re.com/
It's superb at just getting things done, well until I get round to
reading 'Mastering Regular expressions'
On 27/03/2008, Ottavio Caruso <tat07x202@???> wrote:
> Hello penguins,
>
>  does anybody know a site where one could put and text some regular
>  expressions without squeezing one's brain?
>
>  Are there any interactive command line applications (shell or perl
>  scripts) that can help in creating these regex?
>
>  Customers are calling me asking to create regex to filter their mail
>  messages out but I am too lazy to study Perl or regex, I wonder if there
>  is any such tool.
>
>  Thanks.
>
>  --
>  Ottavio
>
>
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Peter Brooks