Some Basic Regular Expression Search Examples
Some Basic Regular Expression Search Examples | ||
What to Match |
Operator |
Examples |
Any single character |
? |
g?t finds get, got, gut, together |
Any string of characters (one or more) |
+ |
w+e finds wide, white, write but not we |
Any string of characters (or none) |
* |
w*e matches wide, white, write and we |
One of the specified characters |
[] |
g[eo]t matches get and got but not gut |
One of the characters in a range |
[-] |
[b-p]at matches bat, cat, fat, hat, mat but not rat or sat |
All characters |
[] |
l[] matches line, list, late |
One expression or another |
(|) |
W(elcome to|indows 2000) matches |
One or more expressions |
+() |
+(at) matches atat in catatonic and at in battle |
All characters (perhaps on different lines) |
*[] |
h*[]d matches helped, Hello World, & Hello (cr lf) Win95 World. Use [] instead of complicated range expression such as [a-zA-Z0-9]. This will span across lines up to the limit set by Maximum Regular Expression Size (Search Options). |
Two strings "nearby" (perhaps on different lines) |
*[] |
the*[\0- ]first matches the first and the (cr lf) very first Note: This is an older style syntax using Binary characters. |
A string that doesnÆt start with an expression |
!() |
*: !(http) finds : in following: but not in http://www.funduc.com |
One of the characters not in a range |
![-] |
[a-z]at!([b-p]at) matches rat & sat but nothing in bat, cat, hat. Note: Older syntax for this would be ![b-p]at |
Find all words of length x |
|
+x[a-z], e.g., +3[a-z] finds all 3 letter words. Note: We previously supplied a ! operator example here. By way of example, to do this with a ! operator, the expression would be |
An expression at the beginning of a line |
^ |
^the finds the at the beginning of a line and The if case sensitive is turned off. |
An expression at the end of a line |
$ |
end$ finds end when itÆs the last string on a line. |
One or more column(s) before or after a string |
+n |
[h]+4// finds http:// but not https:// |