Meta-characters in regular expressions

Source: Internet
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Meta-characters in regular expressions

To write a regular expression, be sure to know which characters are available in the expression and what the meanings are. This is like "human" on behalf of the yellow, white, black people and so on. All the metacharacters and descriptions are listed below.

Metacharacters Describe
\ Marks the next character as a special character, or a literal character, or a backward reference, or an octal escape. For example, "\ n" matches a line break. "\\n" matches the character "n". The sequence "\ \" matches "\" and "\ (" Matches "(".
^ Matches the starting position of the input string. If the multiline property of the RegExp object is set, ^ also matches the position after "\ n" or "\ r".
$ Matches the end position of the input string. If the multiline property of the RegExp object is set, $ also matches the position before "\ n" or "\ r".
* Matches the preceding subexpression 0 or more times. For example, zo* can match "z" and "Zoo". * Equivalent to {0,}.
+ Matches the preceding subexpression one or more times. For example, "zo+" can Match "Zo" and "Zoo", but not "Z". + equivalent to {1,}.
? Matches the preceding subexpression 0 or one time. For example, "Do (es)?" You can match "do" in "does" or "does".? = {0,1}.
N N is a non-negative integer. Matches the determined n times. For example, "o{2}" cannot match "O" in "Bob", but can match two o in "food".
{N,} N is a non-negative integer. Match at least n times. For example, "o{2,}" cannot match "O" in "Bob", but can match all o in "Foooood". "O{1,}" is equivalent to "o+". "O{0,}" is equivalent to "o*".
{N,m} Both M and n are non-negative integers, where n<=m. Matches at least n times and matches up to M times. For example, "o{1,3}" will match the first three o in "Fooooood". "o{0,1}" is equivalent to "O?". Note that there can be no spaces between a comma and two numbers.
? When the character immediately follows any other restriction (*,+,?,{n},{n,},{n,m}), the matching pattern is non-greedy. The non-greedy pattern matches the searched string as little as possible, while the default greedy pattern matches as many of the searched strings as possible. For example, for the string "Oooo", "O?" A single "O" will be matched, and "o+" will match all "O".
. Point Matches any single character except "\ n". To match any character that includes "\ n", use a pattern like "[\s\s]".
(pattern) Match pattern and get this match. The obtained matches can be obtained from the resulting matches collection, the Submatches collection is used in VBScript, and the $0...$9 property is used in JScript. To match the parentheses character, use " or" .
(?:p Attern) Matches pattern but does not get a matching result, which means that this is a non-fetch match and is not stored for later use. This is used in the or character "(|)" It is useful to combine the various parts of a pattern. For example, "Industr (?: y|ies)" is a more abbreviated expression than "industry|industries".
(? =pattern) Positive pre-check to match the find string at the beginning of any string matching pattern. This is a non-fetch match, which means that the match does not need to be acquired for later use. For example, "Windows (? =95|98| nt|2000) "Can match" windows "in" Windows2000 ", but does not match" windows "in" Windows3.1 ". Pre-checking does not consume characters, that is, after a match occurs, the next matching search starts immediately after the last match, rather than starting with the character that contains the pre-check.
(?! Pattern Forward negation, matching the lookup string at the beginning of any mismatched pattern string. This is a non-fetch match, which means that the match does not need to be acquired for later use. For example, "Windows (?! 95|98| nt|2000) "Can match" windows "in" Windows3.1 ", but does not match" windows "in" Windows2000 ".
(? <=pattern) Reverse positive pre-check, similar to positive pre-check, just the opposite direction. For example, "(? <=95|98| nt|2000) Windows can match "Windows" in 2000Windows, but not "windows" in "3.1Windows".
(? <!pattern) Reverse negation is similar to positive negative pre-checking, except in the opposite direction. For example "(? <!95|98| nt|2000) Windows can match "Windows" in 3.1Windows, but not "windows" in "2000Windows".
X|y Match x or Y. For example, "Z|food" can match "Z" or "food". "(z|f) Ood" matches "Zood" or "food".
[XYZ] The character set is combined. Matches any one of the characters contained. For example, "[ABC]" can Match "a" in "plain".
[^XYZ] Negative character set. Matches any character that is not contained. For example, "[^ABC]" can match "Plin" in "plain".
[A-z] The character range. Matches any character within the specified range. For example, "[A-z]" can match any lowercase alphabetic character in the range "a" to "Z". Note: The range of characters can be represented only if the hyphen is inside a character group and is between two characters; If the beginning of the character group is out, only the hyphen itself can be represented.
[^a-z] A negative character range. Matches any character that is not in the specified range. For example, "[^a-z]" can match any character that is not in the range "a" to "Z".
\b Matches a word boundary, which is the position between a word and a space. For example, "er\b" can Match "er" in "never", but cannot match "er" in "verb".
\b Matches a non-word boundary. "er\b" can Match "er" in "verb", but cannot match "er" in "Never".
\cx Matches the control character indicated by X. For example, \cm matches a control-m or carriage return. The value of x must be one of a-Z or a-Z. Otherwise, c is considered to be a literal "C" character.
\d Matches a numeric character. equivalent to [0-9].
\d Matches a non-numeric character. equivalent to [^0-9].
\f Matches a page break. Equivalent to \x0c and \CL.
\ n Matches a line break. Equivalent to \x0a and \CJ.
\ r Matches a carriage return character. Equivalent to \x0d and \cm.
\s Matches any whitespace character, including spaces, tabs, page breaks, and so on. equivalent to [\f\n\r\t\v].
\s Matches any non-whitespace character. equivalent to [^ \f\n\r\t\v].
\ t Matches a tab character. Equivalent to \x09 and \ci.
\v Matches a vertical tab. Equivalent to \x0b and \ck.
\w Matches any word character that includes an underscore. Equivalent to "[a-za-z0-9_]".
\w Matches any non-word character. Equivalent to "[^a-za-z0-9_]".
\xn Match N, where n is the hexadecimal escape value. The hexadecimal escape value must be two digits long for a determination. For example, "\x41" matches "A". "\x041" is equivalent to "\x04&1". ASCII encoding can be used in regular expressions.
\num Matches num, where num is a positive integer. A reference to the obtained match. For example, "(.) \1 "matches two consecutive identical characters.
\ n Identifies an octal escape value or a backward reference. n is a backward reference if \ n is preceded by at least one of the sub-expressions obtained. Otherwise, if n is the octal number (0-7), N is an octal escape value.
\nm Identifies an octal escape value or a backward reference. If at least NM has obtained a subexpression before \nm, then NM is a backward reference. If there are at least N fetches before \nm, then n is a backward reference followed by the literal m. If none of the preceding conditions are met, if both N and M are octal digits (0-7), then \nm will match the octal escape value nm.
\nml If n is an octal number (0-7) and both M and L are octal digits (0-7), the octal escape value NML is matched.
\un Match N, where N is a Unicode character represented by four hexadecimal digits. For example, \u00a9 matches the copyright symbol (©).

Meta-characters in regular expressions

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