Regular Expression Pocket Reference

Supported Metacharacters

PCRE supports the metacharacters and metasequences listed in Table 1-26 through Table 1-30. For expanded definitions of each metacharacter, see Section 1.2.1.

Table 1-26. Character representations

Sequence	Meaning
\a	Alert (bell), x07.
\b	Backspace, x08, supported only in character class.
\e	ESC character, x1B.
\n	Newline, x0A.
\r	Carriage return, x0D.
\f	Form feed, x0C.
\t	Horizontal tab, x09.
\octal	Character specified by a three-digit octal code.
\xhex	Character specified by a one- or two-digit hexadecimal code.
\x{hex}	Character specified by any hexadecimal code.
\cchar	Named control character.

Table 1-27. Character classes and class-like constructs

Class	Meaning
[...]	A single character listed or contained in a listed range.
[^...]	A single character not listed and not contained within a listed range.
[:class:]	POSIX-style character class valid only within a regex character class.
.	Any character except newline (unless single-line mode, /s).
\C	One byte; however, this may corrupt a Unicode character stream.
\w	Word character, [a-zA-z0-9_].
\W	Non-word character, [^a-zA-z0-9_].
\d	Digit character, [0-9].
\D	Non-digit character, [^0-9].
\s	Whitespace character, [\n\r\f\t ].
\S	Non-whitespace character, [^\n\r\f\t ].

Table 1-28. Anchors and zero-width tests

Sequence	Meaning
^	Start of string, or after any newline if in multiline match mode, /m.
\A	Start of search string, in all match modes.
$	End of search ...