Using REGULAR EXPRESSIONS

In Brief | Matching-Single-Characters | Bracket-Expression | Matching-Multiple-Characters | Anchoring-Expressions | Examples

In brief

Most of my search pages use regular expressions. By learning how to use expressions you gain the most from our search facilities. Doing so will allow you to utilize the engines to their full capabilities.

Regular expressions are used to search strings for patterns of characters. In brief, the wildcard character is the period ('.'). You specify zero or more characters with the asterisk ('*'), zero or one characters with the question mark ('?'), one or more characters with the plus ('+') after the character. The caret ('^') anchors an expression at the beginning of the line, the dollar ('$') anchors an expression at the end of the line.

Examples:

Input

1GE
Matches the string 1GE anywhere in the string to be searched:
Matches: 01GE 456
Doesn't match: 01G E 456

^1GE
Matches the string 1GE at the beginning of the string to be searched.
Matches: 1GEABC
Doesn't match: 01GE 456

1GE$
Matches the string 1GE at the end of the string to be searched.
Matches: ABC1GE
Doesn't match: 1GEABC

1GE*
Matches the string 1G directly followed by 0 or more 'E' anywhere in the string to be searched.
Matches: 01G 456
Matches: 01GEEE 456
Doesn't match: 01 GE 456

1G[A-E]
Matches the string 1G directly followed by one of the letters from the interval A-E anywhere in the string to be searched.
Matches: 01GA
Matches: 01GC 456
Doesn't match: 01GF

1G[^ACE]
Matches the string 1G directly followed by a character that is not A, C, or E anywhere in the string to be searched.
Matches: 01GB
Matches: 01G 456
Matches: 01G456
Doesn't match: 01GC 456

1.E
Matches the string 1 directly followed by any single character, followed by E.
Matches: 01GE
Matches: 01 E56
Matches: 016E56
Doesn't match: 01G E456

1.*E
Matches the string 1 directly followed by zero or more characters, followed by E.
Matches: 01GE
Matches: 01 ABC E56
Matches: 01E56
Doesn't match: 0E1456

1.+E
Matches the string 1 directly followed by one or more characters, followed by E.
Matches: 01GE
Matches: 01 ABC E56
Doesn't match: 01E56

REs Matching a Single Character

The following REs match a single character or a single collating element:

Ordinary Characters

An ordinary character is an RE that matches itself. An ordinary character is any character in the supported character set except newline and the regular expression special characters listed in Special Characters below. An ordinary character preceded by a backslash (\) is treated as the ordinary character itself, except when the character is (, ), {, or }, or the digits 1 through 9 (see REs Matching Multiple Characters). Matching is based on the bit pattern used for encoding the character; not on the graphic representation of the character.

Special Characters

A regular expression special character preceded by a backslash is a regular expression that matches the special character itself. When not preceded by a backslash, such characters have special meaning in the specification of REs. Regular expression special characters and the contexts in which they have special meaning are:

. [ \
The period, left square bracket, and backslash are special except when used in a bracket expression (see RE Bracket Expression).
*
The asterisk is special except when used in a bracket expression, as the first character of a regular expression, or as the first character following the character pair \( (see REs Matching Multiple Characters).
+
The plus is special except when used in a bracket expression, as the first character of a regular expression, or as the first character following the character pair \( (see REs Matching Multiple Characters).
^
The circumflex is special when used as the first character of an entire RE (see Expression Anchoring) or as the first character of a bracket expression.
$
The dollar sign is special when used as the last character of an entire RE (see Expression Anchoring).
delimiter
Any character used to bound (i.e., delimit) an entire RE is special for that RE.
Period

A period (.), when used outside of a bracket expression, is an RE that matches any printable or nonprintable character except <newline>.

RE Bracket Expression

A bracket expression enclosed in square brackets ([ ]) is an RE that matches a single collating element contained in the nonempty set of collating elements represented by the bracket expression.

The following rules apply to bracket expressions:

bracket expression
A bracket expression is either a matching list expression or a non-matching list expression, and consists of one or more expressions in any order. Expressions can be: collating elements, collating symbols, noncollating characters, equivalence classes, range expressions, or character classes. The right bracket (]) loses its special meaning and represents itself in a bracket expression if it occurs first in the list (after an initial ^, if any). Otherwise, it terminates the bracket expression (unless it is the ending right bracket for a valid collating symbol, equivalence class, or character class, or it is the collating element within a collating symbol or equivalence class expression). The special characters

. * + [ \

(period, asterisk, plus, left bracket, and backslash) lose their special meaning within a bracket expression.

matching list
A matching list expression specifies a list that matches any one of the characters represented in the list. The first character in the list cannot be the circumflex. For example, [abc] is an RE that matches any of a, b, or c.
non-matching list
A non-matching list expression begins with a circumflex (^), and specifies a list that matches any character except newline and the characters represented in the list. For example, [^abc] is an RE that matches any character except newline or a, b, or c. The circumflex has this special meaning only when it occurs first in the list, immediately following the left square bracket.
collating element
A collating element is a sequence of one or more characters that represents a single element in the collating sequence as identified via the most current setting of the locale category LC_COLLATE (see setlocale(3C)).
collating symbol
A collating symbol is a collating element enclosed within bracket-period ([.....]) delimiters. Multi-character collating elements must be represented as collating symbols to distinguish them from single-character collating elements. For example, if the string ch is a valid collating element, then [.ch.] is treated as an element matching the same string of characters, while ch is treated as a simple list of the characters c and h. If the string within the bracket-period delimiters is not a valid collating element in the current collating sequence definition, the symbol is treated as an invalid expression.
noncollating character
A noncollating character is a character that is ignored for collating purposes. By definition, such characters cannot participate in equivalence classes or range expressions.
equivalence class
An equivalence class expression represents the set of collating elements belonging to an equivalence class. It is expressed by enclosing any one of the collating elements in the equivalence class within bracket-equal ([=...=]) delimiters. For example, if ,,and A belong to the same equivalence class, then [[=a=]b], =]b], and [[=A=]b] are each equivalent toAb].
range expression
A range expression represents the set of collating elements that fall between two elements in the current collation sequence as defined via the most current setting of the locale category LC_COLLATE (see setlocale(3C)). It is expressed as the starting point and the ending point separated by a hyphen (-).

The starting range point and the ending range point must be a collating element, collating symbol, or equivalence class expression. An equivalence class expression used as an end point of a range expression is interpreted such that all collating elements within the equivalence class are included in the range. For example, if the collating order is A, a, B, b, C, c, ch, D, d; and A and a constitute an equivalence class, then the expression [[=a=]-D] is treated as [AaBbCc[.ch.]D].

Both starting and ending range points must be valid collating elements, collating symbols, or equivalence class expressions, and the ending range point must collate equal to or higher than the starting range point; otherwise the expression is invalid. For example, with the above collating order and assuming that E is a noncollating character, then both the expressions [[=A=]-E] and [d-a] are invalid.

An ending range point can also be the starting range point in a subsequent range expression. Each such range expression is evaluated separately. For example, the bracket expression [a-m-o] is treated as [a-mm-o].

The hyphen character is treated as itself if it occurs first (after an initial ^, if any) or last in the list, or as the rightmost symbol in a range expression. As examples, the expressions [-ac] and [ac-] are equivalent and match any of the characters a, c, or -; the expressions [^-ac] and [^ac-] are equivalent and match any characters except newline, a, c, or -; the expression [%--] matches any of the characters in the defined collating sequence between % and - inclusive; the expression [--@] matches any of the characters in the defined collating sequence between - and @ inclusive; and the expression [a--@] is invalid, assuming - precedes a in the collating sequence.

character class
A character class expression represents the set of characters belonging to a character class, as defined via the most current setting of the locale category LC_CTYPE. It is expressed as a character class name enclosed within bracket-colon ([: :]) delimiters.

Valid character class expressions and the class they represent are:

Character Classes
[:alpha:] letters
[:upper:] upper-case letters
[:lower:] lower-case letters
[:digit:] decimal digits
[:xdigit:] hexadecimal digits
[:alnum:] letters or decimal digits
[:space:] characters producing white-space in displayed text
[:print:] printing characters
[:punct:] punctuation characters
[:graph:] characters with a visible representation
[:cntrl:] control characters

REs Matching Multiple Characters

The following rules may be used to construct REs matching multiple characters from REs matching a single character:

RERE
The concatenation of REs is an RE that matches the first encountered concatenation of the strings matched by each component of the RE. For example, the RE bc matches the second and third characters of the string abcdefabcdef.
RE*
An RE matching a single character followed by an asterisk (*) is an RE that matches zero or more occurrences of the RE preceding the asterisk. The first encountered string that permits a match is chosen, and the matched string will encompass the maximum number of characters permitted by the RE. For example, in the string abbbcdeabbbbbbcde, both the RE b*c and the RE bbb*c are matched by the substring bbbc in the second through fifth positions. An asterisk as the first character of an RE loses this special meaning and is treated as itself.
RE+
An RE matching a single character followed by an plus (+) is an RE that matches one or more occurrences of the RE preceding the asterisk. The first encountered string that permits a match is chosen, and the matched string will encompass the maximum number of characters permitted by the RE. For example, in the string abbbcdeabbbbbbcde, both the RE b+c and the RE bbb+c are matched by the substring bbbc in the second through fifth positions. A plus as the first character of an RE loses this special meaning and is treated as itself.
\(RE\)
A subexpression can be defined within an RE by enclosing it between the character pairs \( and \). Such a subexpression matches whatever it would have matched without the \( and \). Subexpressions can be arbitrarily nested. An asterisk immediately following the \( loses its special meaning and is treated as itself. An asterisk immediately following the \) is treated as an invalid character.
\n
The expression \n matches the same string of characters as was matched by a subexpression enclosed between \( and \) preceding the \n. The character n must be a digit from 1 through 9, specifying the n-th subexpression (the one that begins with the n-th \( and ends with the corresponding paired \). For example, the expression ^\(.*\)\1$ matches a line consisting of two adjacent appearances of the same string.

If the \n is followed by an asterisk, it matches zero or more occurrences of the subexpression referred to. For example, the expression \(ab\(cd\)ef\)Z\2*Z\1 matches the string abcdefZcdcdZabcdef.

RE\{m,n\}
An RE matching a single character followed by \{m\}, \{m,\}, or \{m,n\} is an RE that matches repeated occurrences of the RE. The values of m and n must be decimal integers in the range 0 through 255, with m specifying the exact or minimum number of occurrences and n specifying the maximum number of occurrences. \{m\} matches exactly m occurrences of the preceding RE, \{m,\} matches at least m occurrences, and \{m,n\} matches any number of occurrences between m and n, inclusive.

The first encountered string that matches the expression is chosen; it will contain as many occurrences of the RE as possible. For example, in the string abbbbbbbc the RE b\{3\} is matched by characters two through four, the RE b\{3,\} is matched by characters two through eight, and the RE b\{3,5\}c is matched by characters four through nine.

Expression Anchoring

An RE can be limited to matching strings that begin or end a line (i.e., anchored) according to the following rules:

Examples

1GE
Matches the string 1GE anywhere in the string to be searched:
Matches: 01GE 456
Doesn't match: 01G E 456
^1GE
Matches the string 1GE at the beginning of the string to be searched.
Matches: 1GEABC
Doesn't match: 01GE 456
1GE*
Matches the string 1G directly followed by 0 or more 'E' anywhere in the string to be searched.
Matches: 01G 456
Matches: 01GEEE 456
Doesn't match: 01 GE 456
1G[A-E]
Matches the string 1G directly followed by one of the letters from the interval A-E anywhere in the string to be searched.
Matches: 01GA
Matches: 01GC 456
Doesn't match: 01GF
1G[^ACE]
Matches the string 1G directly followed by a character that is not A, C, or E anywhere in the string to be searched.
Matches: 01GB
Matches: 01G 456
Matches: 01G456
Doesn't match: 01GC 456

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