Working with Sets of Characters in Regular Expressions
- Matching One of Several Characters
- Using Character Set Ranges
- “Anything But” Matching
- Summary
Learn how to work with sets of characters in Regular Expressions. Unlike the ., which matches any single character (as you learned in the previous lesson), sets enable you to match specific characters and character ranges.
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This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
In this lesson you’ll learn how to work with sets of characters. Unlike the ., which matches any single character (as you learned in the previous lesson), sets enable you to match specific characters and character ranges.
Matching One of Several Characters
As you learned in the previous lesson, . matches any one character (as does any literal character). In the final example in that lesson, .a was used to match both na and sa, . matched both the n and s. But what if there was a file (containing Canadian sales data) named ca1.xls as well, and you still wanted to match only na and sa)? . would also match c, and so that filename would also be matched.
Text
sales1.xls orders3.xls sales2.xls sales3.xls apac1.xls europe2.xls na1.xls na2.xls sa1.xls ca1.xls
RegEx
.a.\.xls
Result
sales1.xls orders3.xls sales2.xls sales3.xls apac1.xls europe2.xls na1.xls na2.xls sa1.xls ca1.xls
To find n or s you would not want to match any character, you would want to match just those two characters. In regular expressions a set of characters is defined using the metacharacters [ and ]. [ and ] define a character set, everything between them is part of the set, and any one of the set members must match (but not all).
Here is a revised version of that example from the previous lesson:
Text
sales1.xls orders3.xls sales2.xls sales3.xls apac1.xls europe2.xls na1.xls na2.xls sa1.xls ca1.xls
RegEx
[ns]a.\.xls
Result
sales1.xls orders3.xls sales2.xls sales3.xls apac1.xls europe2.xls na1.xls na2.xls sa1.xls ca1.xls
Analysis
The regular expression used here starts with [ns]; this matches either n or s (but not c or any other character). The opening [ and closing ] do not match any characters—they define the set. The literal a matches a, . matches any character, \. matches the ., and the literal xls matches xls. When you use this pattern, only the three desired filenames are matched.
Character sets are frequently used to make searches (or specific parts thereof) not case sensitive. For example:
Text
The phrase "regular expression" is often abbreviated as RegEx or regex.
RegEx
[Rr]eg[Ee]x
Result
The phrase "regular expression" is often abbreviated as RegEx or regex.
Analysis
The pattern used here contains two character sets: [Rr] matches R and r, and [Ee] matches E and e. This way, RegEx and regex are both matched. REGEX, however, would not match.