The regular expressions or regex as they are known popularly are used for string handling purpose.
If we want to compare the two strings, if we want to replace some of the characters in the string, if we want to extract specific pattern in a particular string, then we go for regex.
This regex enables us to get the required information in very easy way.
Regex is always applied to the strings only. The simples regex is a dot(.) which matches with “a” or “z” or “1”.
RULES FOR THE REGULAR EXPRESSIONS
The standard set of rules or matching symbols can be expressed in the form of following tables
Table No. 1
| . | Matches any character |
| ^refex | Matches regex that must match at the
beginning of the line |
| abc$ | Matches regex that resides at the end of
the line |
| [abc] | Matches either a or b or c |
| [abc][yz] | Matches a or b or c followed by either y or
z |
| [^abc] | Matches all the string that do not start with
either a or b or c |
| [a-z0-9] | This depicts the range(-) in regex. It matches
any character from a to z followed by any integer from 0 to 9 |
| a|b | Matches either a or b |
| ab | Matches a followed by b only |
| $ | Matches the end of the line i.e. blank line |
Table No. 2
| \d | Matches any digit, short for [0-9] |
| \D | Matches any non-digit, short for [^0-9] |
| \s | Matches any whitespace character, short for
[ \t\n\r\f] |
| \S | Matches any non-whitespace character,
short for [^\s] |
| \w | Matches any word character, short for [a-
zA-Z0-9] |
| \W | Matches any non-word character, short for
[^\w] |
| \S+ | Matches several non-whitespace character |
| \b | Matches a word boundary |
Table No. 3
| * | Occurences of zero or more times, short for
{0,} |
| + | Occurences of one or more times, short for
{1,} |
| ? | Occurences of none or one times, short for
{0,1} |
| {x} | Occurs x number of times |
| {x,y} | Occurs between x and y times |
In the upcoming blogs on regex, grouping concept will be discussed.
Hope you had a great read. Thank you.
