NAME
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regexp – regular expression notation |
DESCRIPTION
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A regular expression specifies a set of strings of characters.
A member of this set of strings is said to be matched by the regular
expression. In many applications a delimiter character, commonly
/, bounds a regular expression. In the following specification
for regular expressions the word `character' means any
character (rune) but newline.
The syntax for a regular expression e0 is
A charclass is a nonempty string s bracketed [s] (or [^s]); it matches any character in (or not in) s. A negated character class never matches newline. A substring a–b, with a and b in ascending order, stands for the inclusive range of characters between a and b. In s, the metacharacters –, ], an initial ^, and the regular expression delimiter must be preceded by a \; other metacharacters have no special meaning and may appear unescaped. A . matches any character. A ^ matches the beginning of a line; $ matches the end of the line. The REP operators match zero or more (*), one or more (+), zero or one (?), instances respectively of the preceding regular expression e2. A concatenated regular expression, e1e2, matches a match to e1 followed by a match to e2. An alternative regular expression, e0|e1, matches either a match to e0 or a match to e1.
A match to any part of a regular expression extends as far as
possible without preventing a match to the remainder of the regular
expression. |
SEE ALSO
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awk(1), ed(1), grep(1), sam(1), sed(1), regexp(2) |