Regular Expressions: Basic Syntax

A regex is a specification of a pattern to be matched in the searched text. This pattern consists of a sequence of tokens, each being able to match a single character or a sequence of characters in the text, or assert that a specific position within the text has been reached (the latter is called an anchor.) Tokens (also called atoms) can be modified by adding one of a number of special quantifier tokens immediately after the token. A quantifier token specifies how many times the previous token must be matched (see below.)

Tokens can be grouped together using one of a number of grouping constructs, the most common being plain parentheses. Tokens that are grouped in this way are also collectively considered to be a regex atom, since this new larger atom may also be modified by a quantifier.

A regex can also be organized into a list of alternatives by separating each alternative with pipe characters, `|'. This is called alternation. A match will be attempted for each alternative listed, in the order specified, until a match results or the list of alternatives is exhausted (see "Alternation" below.)

 The Dot Meta Character

If an un-escaped dot (`.') appears in a regex, it means to match any character exactly once. By default dot will not match a newline character, but this behavior can be changed (see help topic "Grouping", item "Matching Newlines".)

 Character Classes

A character class, or range, matches exactly one character of text, but the candidates for matching are limited to those specified by the class. Classes come in two flavors as described below:

• [...] Regular class, match only characters listed.
• [^...] Negated class, match only characters NOT listed.

As with the dot token, by default negated character classes do not match newline, but can be made to do so.

The characters that are considered special within a class specification are different than the rest of regex syntax as follows. If the first character in a class is the `]' character (second character if the first character is `^') it is a literal character and part of the class character set. This also applies if the first or last character is `-'. Outside of these rules, two characters separated by `-' form a character range which includes all the characters between the two characters as well. For example, `[^f-j]' is the same as `[^fghij]' and means to match any character that is not `f', `g', `h', `i', or `j'.

  Anchors

Anchors are assertions that you are at a very specific position within the search text. NEdit regular expressions support the following anchor tokens:

• ^ Beginning of line
• $ End of line
• < Left word boundary
• > Right word boundary
• \B Not a word boundary

Note that the \B token ensures that the left and right characters are both delimiter characters, or that both left and right characters are non-delimiter characters. Currently word anchors check only one character, e.g. the left word anchor `<' only asserts that the left character is a word delimiter character. Similarly the right word anchor checks the right character.

 Quantifiers

Quantifiers specify how many times the previous regular expression atom may be matched in the search text. Some quantifiers can produce a large performance penalty, and can in some instances completely lock up NEdit. To prevent this, avoid nested quantifiers, especially those of the maximal matching type (see below.)

The following quantifiers are maximal matching, or "greedy", in that they match as much text as possible.

• * Match zero or more
• + Match one or more
• ? Match zero or one

The following quantifiers are minimal matching, or "lazy", in that they match as little text as possible.

• *? Match zero or more
• +? Match one or more
• ?? Match zero or one

One final quantifier is the counting quantifier, or brace quantifier. It takes the following basic form:

• {min,max} Match from `min' to `max' times the previous regular expression atom.

The quantifiers `{1}' and `{1,1}' are accepted by the syntax, but are optimized away since they mean to match exactly once, which is redundant information. Also, for efficiency, certain combinations of `min' and `max' are converted to either `*', `+', or `?' as follows:

• {} {,} {0,} * 
• {1,} +  
• {,1} {0,1} ? 

Note that {0} and {0,0} are meaningless and will generate an error message at regular expression compile time.

Brace quantifiers can also be "lazy". For example {2,5}? would try to match 2 times if possible, and will only match 3, 4, or 5 times if that is what is necessary to achieve an overall match.

  Alternation

A series of alternative patterns to match can be specified by separating them with vertical pipes, `|'. An example of alternation would be `a|be|sea'. This will match `a', or `be', or `sea'. Each alternative can be an arbitrarily complex regular expression. The alternatives are attempted in the order specified. An empty alternative can be specified if desired, e.g. `a|b|'. Since an empty alternative can match nothingness (the empty string), this guarantees that the expression will match.

 Comments

Comments are of the form `(?#<comment text>)' and can be inserted anywhere and have no effect on the execution of the regular expression. They can be handy for documenting very complex regular expressions. Note that a comment begins with `(?#' and ends at the first occurrence of an ending parenthesis, or the end of the regular expression... period. Comments do not recognize any escape sequences.