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Regular Expression Syntax

Regular Expression Syntax

Regular expressions, often abbreviated as regex or regexp, are powerful tools for pattern matching and string manipulation. They are widely used in various programming languages and tools for tasks like data validation, text search, and more. Let's explore the syntax of regular expressions:

Literal characters in a regular expression match themselves. For example, the regex /hello/ matches the string "hello" in any text.

Metacharacters are special characters with special meanings in regular expressions:

  • .: Matches any single character except newline.
  • ^: Anchors the regex at the start of the string.
  • $: Anchors the regex at the end of the string.
  • *: Matches zero or more occurrences of the preceding character.
  • : Matches one or more occurrences of the preceding character.
  • ?: Matches zero or one occurrence of the preceding character.
  • {}: Matches a specific number of occurrences of the preceding character or group.
  • []: Defines a character class, matching any one of the characters inside it.
  • |: Acts as an OR operator, matching either the expression before or after it.
  • \: Escapes a metacharacter, allowing it to be treated as a literal character.

Character classes allow matching a specific set of characters:

  • \d: Matches any digit character.
  • \w: Matches any word character (alphanumeric characters plus underscore).
  • \s: Matches any whitespace character.
  • \D: Matches any nondigit character.
  • \W: Matches any nonword character.
  • \S: Matches any nonwhitespace character.

Grouping and capturing allow capturing parts of a match for later use:

  • (...): Creates a capturing group.
  • (?:...): Creates a noncapturing group.
  • \n: Refers to the nth capturing group's match.

Flags modify the behavior of regular expressions:

  • i: Caseinsensitive matching.
  • g: Global matching (find all matches rather than stopping after the first match).
  • m: Multiline matching (treats beginning and end characters (^ and $) as working across multiple lines).

Let's see some examples of regular expressions:

  • /\d{3}\d{3}\d{4}/: Matches a phone number in the format XXXXXXXXXX.
  • /^[AZaz] $/: Matches a string consisting only of alphabetic characters.
  • /\b\d{4}\b/: Matches a 4digit number surrounded by word boundaries.

Regular expressions are versatile tools for pattern matching and string manipulation. Understanding their syntax and usage can greatly enhance your ability to work with textual data in programming and other contexts.

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