1PERLREQUICK(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLREQUICK(1)
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6 perlrequick - Perl regular expressions quick start
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9 This page covers the very basics of understanding, creating and using
10 regular expressions ('regexes') in Perl.
11
13 Simple word matching
14 The simplest regex is simply a word, or more generally, a string of
15 characters. A regex consisting of a word matches any string that
16 contains that word:
17 "Hello World" =~ /World/; # matches
19 In this statement, "World" is a regex and the "//" enclosing "/World/"
21 tells perl to search a string for a match. The operator "=~"
22 associates the string with the regex match and produces a true value if
23 the regex matched, or false if the regex did not match. In our case,
24 "World" matches the second word in "Hello World", so the expression is
25 true. This idea has several variations.
26 Expressions like this are useful in conditionals:
28 print "It matches\n" if "Hello World" =~ /World/;
30 The sense of the match can be reversed by using "!~" operator:
32 print "It doesn't match\n" if "Hello World" !~ /World/;
34 The literal string in the regex can be replaced by a variable:
36 $greeting = "World";
38 print "It matches\n" if "Hello World" =~ /$greeting/;
39 If you're matching against $_, the "$_ =~" part can be omitted:
41 $_ = "Hello World";
43 print "It matches\n" if /World/;
44 Finally, the "//" default delimiters for a match can be changed to
46 arbitrary delimiters by putting an 'm' out front:
47 "Hello World" =~ m!World!; # matches, delimited by '!'
49 "Hello World" =~ m{World}; # matches, note the matching '{}'
50 "/usr/bin/perl" =~ m"/perl"; # matches after '/usr/bin',
51 # '/' becomes an ordinary char
52 Regexes must match a part of the string exactly in order for the
54 statement to be true:
55 "Hello World" =~ /world/; # doesn't match, case sensitive
57 "Hello World" =~ /o W/; # matches, ' ' is an ordinary char
58 "Hello World" =~ /World /; # doesn't match, no ' ' at end
59 perl will always match at the earliest possible point in the string:
61 "Hello World" =~ /o/; # matches 'o' in 'Hello'
63 "That hat is red" =~ /hat/; # matches 'hat' in 'That'
64 Not all characters can be used 'as is' in a match. Some characters,
66 called metacharacters, are reserved for use in regex notation. The
67 metacharacters are
68 {}[]()^$.|*+?\
70 A metacharacter can be matched by putting a backslash before it:
72 "2+2=4" =~ /2+2/; # doesn't match, + is a metacharacter
74 "2+2=4" =~ /2\+2/; # matches, \+ is treated like an ordinary +
75 'C:\WIN32' =~ /C:\\WIN/; # matches
76 "/usr/bin/perl" =~ /\/usr\/bin\/perl/; # matches
77 In the last regex, the forward slash '/' is also backslashed, because
79 it is used to delimit the regex.
80 Non-printable ASCII characters are represented by escape sequences.
82 Common examples are "\t" for a tab, "\n" for a newline, and "\r" for a
83 carriage return. Arbitrary bytes are represented by octal escape
84 sequences, e.g., "\033", or hexadecimal escape sequences, e.g., "\x1B":
85 "1000\t2000" =~ m(0\t2) # matches
87 "cat" =~ /\143\x61\x74/ # matches in ASCII, but a weird way to spell cat
88 Regexes are treated mostly as double quoted strings, so variable
90 substitution works:
91 $foo = 'house';
93 'cathouse' =~ /cat$foo/; # matches
94 'housecat' =~ /${foo}cat/; # matches
95 With all of the regexes above, if the regex matched anywhere in the
97 string, it was considered a match. To specify where it should match,
98 we would use the anchor metacharacters "^" and "$". The anchor "^"
99 means match at the beginning of the string and the anchor "$" means
100 match at the end of the string, or before a newline at the end of the
101 string. Some examples:
102 "housekeeper" =~ /keeper/; # matches
104 "housekeeper" =~ /^keeper/; # doesn't match
105 "housekeeper" =~ /keeper$/; # matches
106 "housekeeper\n" =~ /keeper$/; # matches
107 "housekeeper" =~ /^housekeeper$/; # matches
108 Using character classes
110 A character class allows a set of possible characters, rather than just
111 a single character, to match at a particular point in a regex.
112 Character classes are denoted by brackets "[...]", with the set of
113 characters to be possibly matched inside. Here are some examples:
114 /cat/; # matches 'cat'
116 /[bcr]at/; # matches 'bat', 'cat', or 'rat'
117 "abc" =~ /[cab]/; # matches 'a'
118 In the last statement, even though 'c' is the first character in the
120 class, the earliest point at which the regex can match is 'a'.
121 /[yY][eE][sS]/; # match 'yes' in a case-insensitive way
123 # 'yes', 'Yes', 'YES', etc.
124 /yes/i; # also match 'yes' in a case-insensitive way
125 The last example shows a match with an 'i' modifier, which makes the
127 match case-insensitive.
128 Character classes also have ordinary and special characters, but the
130 sets of ordinary and special characters inside a character class are
131 different than those outside a character class. The special characters
132 for a character class are "-]\^$" and are matched using an escape:
133 /[\]c]def/; # matches ']def' or 'cdef'
135 $x = 'bcr';
136 /[$x]at/; # matches 'bat, 'cat', or 'rat'
137 /[\$x]at/; # matches '$at' or 'xat'
138 /[\\$x]at/; # matches '\at', 'bat, 'cat', or 'rat'
139 The special character '-' acts as a range operator within character
141 classes, so that the unwieldy "[0123456789]" and "[abc...xyz]" become
142 the svelte "[0-9]" and "[a-z]":
143 /item[0-9]/; # matches 'item0' or ... or 'item9'
145 /[0-9a-fA-F]/; # matches a hexadecimal digit
146 If '-' is the first or last character in a character class, it is
148 treated as an ordinary character.
149 The special character "^" in the first position of a character class
151 denotes a negated character class, which matches any character but
152 those in the brackets. Both "[...]" and "[^...]" must match a
153 character, or the match fails. Then
154 /[^a]at/; # doesn't match 'aat' or 'at', but matches
156 # all other 'bat', 'cat, '0at', '%at', etc.
157 /[^0-9]/; # matches a non-numeric character
158 /[a^]at/; # matches 'aat' or '^at'; here '^' is ordinary
159 Perl has several abbreviations for common character classes:
161 · \d is a digit and represents
163 [0-9]
165 · \s is a whitespace character and represents
167 [\ \t\r\n\f]
169 · \w is a word character (alphanumeric or _) and represents
171 [0-9a-zA-Z_]
173 · \D is a negated \d; it represents any character but a digit
175 [^0-9]
177 · \S is a negated \s; it represents any non-whitespace character
179 [^\s]
181 · \W is a negated \w; it represents any non-word character
183 [^\w]
185 · The period '.' matches any character but "\n"
187 The "\d\s\w\D\S\W" abbreviations can be used both inside and outside of
189 character classes. Here are some in use:
190 /\d\d:\d\d:\d\d/; # matches a hh:mm:ss time format
192 /[\d\s]/; # matches any digit or whitespace character
193 /\w\W\w/; # matches a word char, followed by a
194 # non-word char, followed by a word char
195 /..rt/; # matches any two chars, followed by 'rt'
196 /end\./; # matches 'end.'
197 /end[.]/; # same thing, matches 'end.'
198 The word anchor "\b" matches a boundary between a word character and a
200 non-word character "\w\W" or "\W\w":
201 $x = "Housecat catenates house and cat";
203 $x =~ /\bcat/; # matches cat in 'catenates'
204 $x =~ /cat\b/; # matches cat in 'housecat'
205 $x =~ /\bcat\b/; # matches 'cat' at end of string
206 In the last example, the end of the string is considered a word
208 boundary.
209 Matching this or that
211 We can match different character strings with the alternation
212 metacharacter '|'. To match "dog" or "cat", we form the regex
213 "dog|cat". As before, perl will try to match the regex at the earliest
214 possible point in the string. At each character position, perl will
215 first try to match the first alternative, "dog". If "dog" doesn't
216 match, perl will then try the next alternative, "cat". If "cat"
217 doesn't match either, then the match fails and perl moves to the next
218 position in the string. Some examples:
219 "cats and dogs" =~ /cat|dog|bird/; # matches "cat"
221 "cats and dogs" =~ /dog|cat|bird/; # matches "cat"
222 Even though "dog" is the first alternative in the second regex, "cat"
224 is able to match earlier in the string.
225 "cats" =~ /c|ca|cat|cats/; # matches "c"
227 "cats" =~ /cats|cat|ca|c/; # matches "cats"
228 At a given character position, the first alternative that allows the
230 regex match to succeed will be the one that matches. Here, all the
231 alternatives match at the first string position, so the first matches.
232 Grouping things and hierarchical matching
234 The grouping metacharacters "()" allow a part of a regex to be treated
235 as a single unit. Parts of a regex are grouped by enclosing them in
236 parentheses. The regex "house(cat|keeper)" means match "house"
237 followed by either "cat" or "keeper". Some more examples are
238 /(a|b)b/; # matches 'ab' or 'bb'
240 /(^a|b)c/; # matches 'ac' at start of string or 'bc' anywhere
241 /house(cat|)/; # matches either 'housecat' or 'house'
243 /house(cat(s|)|)/; # matches either 'housecats' or 'housecat' or
244 # 'house'. Note groups can be nested.
245 "20" =~ /(19|20|)\d\d/; # matches the null alternative '()\d\d',
247 # because '20\d\d' can't match
248 Extracting matches
250 The grouping metacharacters "()" also allow the extraction of the parts
251 of a string that matched. For each grouping, the part that matched
252 inside goes into the special variables $1, $2, etc. They can be used
253 just as ordinary variables:
254 # extract hours, minutes, seconds
256 $time =~ /(\d\d):(\d\d):(\d\d)/; # match hh:mm:ss format
257 $hours = $1;
258 $minutes = $2;
259 $seconds = $3;
260 In list context, a match "/regex/" with groupings will return the list
262 of matched values "($1,$2,...)". So we could rewrite it as
263 ($hours, $minutes, $second) = ($time =~ /(\d\d):(\d\d):(\d\d)/);
265 If the groupings in a regex are nested, $1 gets the group with the
267 leftmost opening parenthesis, $2 the next opening parenthesis, etc.
268 For example, here is a complex regex and the matching variables
269 indicated below it:
270 /(ab(cd|ef)((gi)|j))/;
272 1 2 34
273 Associated with the matching variables $1, $2, ... are the
275 backreferences "\1", "\2", ... Backreferences are matching variables
276 that can be used inside a regex:
277 /(\w\w\w)\s\1/; # find sequences like 'the the' in string
279 $1, $2, ... should only be used outside of a regex, and "\1", "\2", ...
281 only inside a regex.
282 Matching repetitions
284 The quantifier metacharacters "?", "*", "+", and "{}" allow us to
285 determine the number of repeats of a portion of a regex we consider to
286 be a match. Quantifiers are put immediately after the character,
287 character class, or grouping that we want to specify. They have the
288 following meanings:
289 · "a?" = match 'a' 1 or 0 times
291 · "a*" = match 'a' 0 or more times, i.e., any number of times
293 · "a+" = match 'a' 1 or more times, i.e., at least once
295 · "a{n,m}" = match at least "n" times, but not more than "m" times.
297 · "a{n,}" = match at least "n" or more times
299 · "a{n}" = match exactly "n" times
301 Here are some examples:
303 /[a-z]+\s+\d*/; # match a lowercase word, at least some space, and
305 # any number of digits
306 /(\w+)\s+\1/; # match doubled words of arbitrary length
307 $year =~ /\d{2,4}/; # make sure year is at least 2 but not more
308 # than 4 digits
309 $year =~ /\d{4}|\d{2}/; # better match; throw out 3 digit dates
310 These quantifiers will try to match as much of the string as possible,
312 while still allowing the regex to match. So we have
313 $x = 'the cat in the hat';
315 $x =~ /^(.*)(at)(.*)$/; # matches,
316 # $1 = 'the cat in the h'
317 # $2 = 'at'
318 # $3 = '' (0 matches)
319 The first quantifier ".*" grabs as much of the string as possible while
321 still having the regex match. The second quantifier ".*" has no string
322 left to it, so it matches 0 times.
323 More matching
325 There are a few more things you might want to know about matching
326 operators. In the code
327 $pattern = 'Seuss';
329 while (<>) {
330 print if /$pattern/;
331 }
332 perl has to re-evaluate $pattern each time through the loop. If
334 $pattern won't be changing, use the "//o" modifier, to only perform
335 variable substitutions once. If you don't want any substitutions at
336 all, use the special delimiter "m''":
337 @pattern = ('Seuss');
339 m/@pattern/; # matches 'Seuss'
340 m'@pattern'; # matches the literal string '@pattern'
341 The global modifier "//g" allows the matching operator to match within
343 a string as many times as possible. In scalar context, successive
344 matches against a string will have "//g" jump from match to match,
345 keeping track of position in the string as it goes along. You can get
346 or set the position with the "pos()" function. For example,
347 $x = "cat dog house"; # 3 words
349 while ($x =~ /(\w+)/g) {
350 print "Word is $1, ends at position ", pos $x, "\n";
351 }
352 prints
354 Word is cat, ends at position 3
356 Word is dog, ends at position 7
357 Word is house, ends at position 13
358 A failed match or changing the target string resets the position. If
360 you don't want the position reset after failure to match, add the
361 "//c", as in "/regex/gc".
362 In list context, "//g" returns a list of matched groupings, or if there
364 are no groupings, a list of matches to the whole regex. So
365 @words = ($x =~ /(\w+)/g); # matches,
367 # $word[0] = 'cat'
368 # $word[1] = 'dog'
369 # $word[2] = 'house'
370 Search and replace
372 Search and replace is performed using "s/regex/replacement/modifiers".
373 The "replacement" is a Perl double quoted string that replaces in the
374 string whatever is matched with the "regex". The operator "=~" is also
375 used here to associate a string with "s///". If matching against $_,
376 the "$_ =~" can be dropped. If there is a match, "s///" returns the
377 number of substitutions made, otherwise it returns false. Here are a
378 few examples:
379 $x = "Time to feed the cat!";
381 $x =~ s/cat/hacker/; # $x contains "Time to feed the hacker!"
382 $y = "'quoted words'";
383 $y =~ s/^'(.*)'$/$1/; # strip single quotes,
384 # $y contains "quoted words"
385 With the "s///" operator, the matched variables $1, $2, etc. are
387 immediately available for use in the replacement expression. With the
388 global modifier, "s///g" will search and replace all occurrences of the
389 regex in the string:
390 $x = "I batted 4 for 4";
392 $x =~ s/4/four/; # $x contains "I batted four for 4"
393 $x = "I batted 4 for 4";
394 $x =~ s/4/four/g; # $x contains "I batted four for four"
395 The evaluation modifier "s///e" wraps an "eval{...}" around the
397 replacement string and the evaluated result is substituted for the
398 matched substring. Some examples:
399 # reverse all the words in a string
401 $x = "the cat in the hat";
402 $x =~ s/(\w+)/reverse $1/ge; # $x contains "eht tac ni eht tah"
403 # convert percentage to decimal
405 $x = "A 39% hit rate";
406 $x =~ s!(\d+)%!$1/100!e; # $x contains "A 0.39 hit rate"
407 The last example shows that "s///" can use other delimiters, such as
409 "s!!!" and "s{}{}", and even "s{}//". If single quotes are used
410 "s'''", then the regex and replacement are treated as single quoted
411 strings.
412 The split operator
414 "split /regex/, string" splits "string" into a list of substrings and
415 returns that list. The regex determines the character sequence that
416 "string" is split with respect to. For example, to split a string into
417 words, use
418 $x = "Calvin and Hobbes";
420 @word = split /\s+/, $x; # $word[0] = 'Calvin'
421 # $word[1] = 'and'
422 # $word[2] = 'Hobbes'
423 To extract a comma-delimited list of numbers, use
425 $x = "1.618,2.718, 3.142";
427 @const = split /,\s*/, $x; # $const[0] = '1.618'
428 # $const[1] = '2.718'
429 # $const[2] = '3.142'
430 If the empty regex "//" is used, the string is split into individual
432 characters. If the regex has groupings, then the list produced
433 contains the matched substrings from the groupings as well:
434 $x = "/usr/bin";
436 @parts = split m!(/)!, $x; # $parts[0] = ''
437 # $parts[1] = '/'
438 # $parts[2] = 'usr'
439 # $parts[3] = '/'
440 # $parts[4] = 'bin'
441 Since the first character of $x matched the regex, "split" prepended an
443 empty initial element to the list.
444
446 None.
447
449 This is just a quick start guide. For a more in-depth tutorial on
450 regexes, see perlretut and for the reference page, see perlre.
451
453 Copyright (c) 2000 Mark Kvale All rights reserved.
454 This document may be distributed under the same terms as Perl itself.
456 Acknowledgments
458 The author would like to thank Mark-Jason Dominus, Tom Christiansen,
459 Ilya Zakharevich, Brad Hughes, and Mike Giroux for all their helpful
460 comments.
461perl v5.12.4 2011-06-07 PERLREQUICK(1)