Hour 9: Regular Expressions: Regular Expression Crash Course

Sams Teach Yourself Emacs in 24 Hours

Hour 9: Regular Expressions

Sections in this Hour:
Regular Expression Crash Course		Summary
Regular Expressions--Basics		Q&A
Regular Expression Searches		Exercises
Regular Expression Search-and-Replace

Hour 9
Regular Expressions

In the shell (also know as the commands prompt) you often use wildcards (also known as patterns). Wildcards are a way of specifying several files in an easy way. Examples of this include

*--Lists all files. You can, for example, execute the command rm *.to erase all your files. (No, don't try it!)

*.el--Lists all files ending in .el.

file{A,B,C}--Matches fileA, fileB, and fileC.

Patterns have some limitations, which made the people behind Emacs choose to use the more-powerful regular expressions. These limitations are not that important in the shell, but they are when you search for text in a buffer, for example. Things which you can't do with patterns but you can do with regular expressions include

Searching for the phrase this word , where the space in between the two words can be a number of ordinary spaces, tabs, or newlines.

Searching for the word search somewhere on the line, but not the word research.

Matching text for later reference.

Regular Expression Crash Course

In Hours 7, "Searching for Text in a Buffer," and 8, "Searching for Text in Multiple Files," you already saw examples where Emacs wants a regular expression and, believe me, you will see numerous examples in the hours to come. In most cases, however, you only need a very limited subset of the power of regular expressions. Therefore Table 9.1 lists some expressions written both as patterns and as regular expressions. This should give you enough information to read the hours to come.

Table 9.1 Conversion from Patterns to Regular Expression

*Pattern*	*Regular Expression*	*Comments*
file42	file42	This pattern does not contain any of the special characters listed in this table.
file.txt	file\.txt	The dot is one of the special characters; therefore, it must be prefixed with a backslash.
*.txt	.*\.txt	The star represents a number of characters in the pattern. It is replaced with .* in regular expressions. The dot that separates the star and txt is always special for regular expressions, so it must be prefixed with a backslash.
file?.txt	file.\.txt	A question mark represents a single character in the pattern. It is translated to a dot.
file0[1-6].txt	file0[1-6]\.txt	The pattern represents the text file01.txt, file02.txt...file06.txt.
file{AB,CDE,F}	file$AB\\|CDE\\|F$	This pattern represents the text fileAB, fileCDE, or fileF.

In regular expressions, the following characters are special: $, ^, ., *, +, ?, [, ], and \. To include any of these (without their special meanings) in a regular expression, prepend them with a backslash. Thus, to insert the text abc\tdef? as an ordinary string in a regular expression, use the text abc\\tdef\?.

All the regular expression operators are listed in Table 9.2. You will learn more about these operators throughout this hour. So keep reading.

Table 9.2 Regular Expression Symbols

*Symbol*	*Meaning*
	Repeaters
*	Repeats the previous regular expression any number of times (including zero times).
+	Repeats the previous regular expression any number of times (at least one time).
?	The previous regular expression matches zero or one time.
	Grouping / Character Groups
$...$	Groups the text for later reference or to overcome precedence problems.
[...]	Matches any of the characters within the group. (But only one character; if you need to match a number, combine this with *, +, or ?.)
[^...]	Matches any character not in this group.
	Positions
^	Matches the beginning of the line or string.
$	Matches the end of line or string.
\<	Matches the beginning of a word.
\>	Matches the end of a word.
	Special Characters
.	Matches any character.
\w	Matches any character from a word (in most cases, equal to [0-9 a-z A-Z]).
\W	Matches any character not from a word ( [^0-9 a-z A-Z]).

Tip - If you are eager to learn how to use Emacs in your work right away, go ahead and skip the rest of this hour. However, make sure to come back before you finish the book so you know how to use expressions.

Sams Teach Yourself Emacs in 24 Hours

Contents Index

Hour 9: Regular Expressions

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Sections in this Hour:
Regular Expression Crash Course		Summary
Regular Expressions--Basics		Q&A
Regular Expression Searches		Exercises
Regular Expression Search-and-Replace

Hour 9 Regular Expressions

Regular Expression Crash Course

Table 9.1 Conversion from Patterns to Regular Expression

Table 9.2 Regular Expression Symbols

Hour 9
Regular Expressions