Regular Expression syntax

Regular Expression syntax

This table lists the meta-characters understood by the WhatsUp Gold Regex Engine.

Matching a Single Character


Meta-character		Matches
`.`	dot	Matches any one character
`[...]`	character class	Matches any character inside the brackets. Example, [abc] matches "a", "b", and "c"
`[^...]`	negated character class	Matches any character except those inside the brackets. Example, [^abc] matches all characters except "a", "b", and "c". See below for alternate use - the way ^ is used controls its meaning.
`-`	dash	Used within a character class. Indicates a range of characters. Example: [2-7] matches any of the digits "2" through "7". Example: [0-3a-d] is equivalent to [0123abcd]
`\`	escaped character	Interpret the next character literally. Example: 3\.14 matches only "3.14". whereas 3.14 matches "3234", etc.
`\xnn`	binary character	Match a single binary character. nn is a hexadecimal value between 00 and FF. Example: \x41 matches "A" Example: \x0B matches Vertical Tab

Quantifiers


Meta-character		Matches
`?`	question	One optional. The preceding expression once or not at all. Example: colou?r matches "colour" or "color" Example: [0-3][0-5]? matches "2" and "25"
`*`	star	Any number allowed, but are optional. Example: .* Zero or more occurrences of any character
`+`	plus	One required, additional are optional. Example, [0-9]+ matches "1", "15", "220", and so on
`??, +?, *?`		"Non-greedy" versions of ?, +, and . Match as little as possible, whereas the "greedy" versions match as much as possible Example: For input string <html>content</html> <.?> matches <html> <.*> matches <html>content</html>

Matching Position


Meta-character		Matches
`^`	caret	Matches the position at the start of the input. Example: ^2 will only match input that begins with "2". Example: ^[45] will only match input that begins with "4" or "5"
`$`	dollar	At the end of a regular expression, this character matches the end of the input. Example: >$ matches a ">" at the end of the input.

Other


Meta-character		Matches
`\|`	alternation	Matches either expression it separates. Example: H\|Cat matches either "Hat" or "Cat"
`(...)`	parentheses	Provides grouping for quantifiers, limits scope of alternation via precedence. Example: (abc)* matches 0 or more occurrences of the the string abc Example: WhatsUp (Gold)\|(Professional) matches "WhatsUp Gold" or "WhatsUp Professional"
`\0, \1, ...`	backreference	Matches text previously matched within first, second, etc, match group (starting at 0). Example: <{head}>.*?</\0> matches "<head>xxx</head>".
`!`	negation	The expression following ! does not match the input Example: a!b matches "a" not followed by "b".

Abbreviations

Abbreviations are shorthand Meta-characters.

Abbreviation	Matches
`\a`	Any alphanumeric character: ([a-zA-Z0-9])
`\b`	White space (blank): ([ \\t])
`\c`	Any alphabetic character: ([a-zA-Z])
`\d`	Any decimal digit: [0-9]
`\D`	Any non decimal digit [^0-9]
`\h`	Any hexadecimal digit: ([0-9a-fA-F])
`\n`	Newline: (\r\|(\r?\n))
`\p`	Any punctuation character: ,./\';:"!?@#$%^&*()[]{}- _=+\|<>!~
`\P`	Any non-punctuation character
`\q`	A quoted string: (\"[^\"]\")\|(\'[^\']\')
`\s`	WhatsUp Gold style white space character [ \\t\\n\\r\\f\\v]
`\S`	WhatsUp Gold style non-white space character [^ \\t\\n\\r\\f\\v]
`\w`	Part-of-word character ([a-zA-Z0-9_])
`\W`	Non-word character ([^a-zA-Z0-9_])
`\z`	An integer: ([0-9]+)

Related Topics

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