Any character

.

Matches any single character except a line break.

a.o matches "aro" in "around" and "abo" in "about" but not "acro" in "across".

Zero or more

*

Matches zero or more occurrences of the preceding expression, and makes all possible matches.

a*b matches "b" in "bat" and "ab" in "about".

e.*e matches the word "enterprise".

One or more

+

Matches at least one occurrence of the preceding expression.

ac+ matches words that contain the letter "a" and at least one instance of "c", such as "race", and "ace".

a.+s matches the word "access".

Beginning of line

^

Anchors the match string to the beginning of a line.

^car matches the word "car" only when it appears as the first set of characters in a line of the editor.

End of line

$

Anchors the match string to the end of a line.

end$ matches the word "end" only when it appears as the last set of characters possible at the end of a line in the editor.

Beginning of word

<

Matches only when a word starts at this point in the text. In this context, The set [a-zA-Z0-9_] is considered to be a word. Any other character between the combinations of [a-zA-Z0-9_] is treated as a word separator.

<in matches words such as "inside" and "into" that begin with the letters "in".

End of word

>

Matches only when a word ends at this point in the text.

ss> matches words such as "across" and "loss" that end with the letters "ss".

Line break

\n

Matches an operating system-independent line break. In a Replace expression, inserts a line break.

End\nBegin matches the word "End" and "Begin" only when "End" is the last string in a line and "Begin" is the first string in the next line.

In a Replace expression,

Begin\nEnd replaces the word "End" with "Begin" on the first line, inserts a line break, and then replaces the word "Begin" with the word "End".

Any one character in the set

[]

Matches any one of the characters in the []. To specify a range of characters, list the starting and ending characters separated by a dash (-), as in [a-z].

be[n-t] matches "bet" in "between", "ben" in "beneath", and "bes" in "beside" but not "bel" in "below".

Any one character not in the set

[^...]

Matches any character that is not in the set of characters that follows the ^.

be[^n-t] matches "bef" in "before", "beh" in "behind", and "bel" in "below", but not "ben" in "beneath".

Or

|

Matches either the expression before or the one after the OR symbol (|). Mostly used in a group.

(sponge|mud) bath matches "sponge bath" and "mud bath."

Escape

\

Matches the character that follows the backslash (\) as a literal. This lets you find the characters that are used in regular expression notation, such as { and ^.

\^ searches for the ^ character.

Tagged expression (or backreference)

{}

Uses the text that is inside the braces to identify locations where text is to be replaced.

{does}n't identifies the text that precedes the replacement in the replace string \1 not to change every occurrence of doesn't to does not.

C/C++ Identifier

:i

Shorthand for the expression ([a-zA-Z_$][a-zA-Z0-9_$]*).

Matches any possible C/C++ identifier.

Quoted string

:q

Shorthand for the expression (("[^"]*")|('[^']*')), which matches all characters that are enclosed in double or single quotation marks, and also the quotation marks themselves.

:q matches "test quote" and 'test quote' but not the 't of can't.

Space or Tab

:b

Matches either space or tab characters.

Public:bInterface matches the phrase "Public Interface" in text.

Integer

:z

Shorthand for the expression ([0-9]+), which matches any combination of numeric characters.

Matches any integer, such as "1", "234", "56", and so on.

Minimal, zero or more

@

Matches zero or more occurrences of the preceding expression, and matches as few characters as possible.

e.@ matches "ente" and "erprise" in "enterprise", but not the full word "enterprise".

Minimal, one or more

#

Matches one or more occurrences of the preceding expression, and matches as few characters as possible.

ac# matches words that contain the letter "a" and at least one instance of "c", such as "ace".

a.#s matches "acces" in the word "access".

Repeat n times

^n

Matches n occurrences of the preceding expression.

[0-9]^4 matches any 4-digit sequence.

Grouping

()

Lets you group a set of expressions together. If you want to search for two different expressions in a single search, you can use the Grouping expression to combine them.

If you want to search for - [a-z][1-3] or - [0-9][a-z], you would combine them: (- [a-z][1-3])|(- [0-9][a-z]).

nth tagged text

\n

In a Find or Replace expression, indicates the text that is matched by the nth tagged expression, where n is a number from 1 to 9.

In a Replace expression, \0 inserts the complete matched text.

If you search for a{[0-9]} and replace with \1, all occurrences of "a" followed by a digit are replaced by the digit it follows. For example, "a1" is replaced by "1" and similarly "a2" is replaced by "2".

Right-justified field

\(w,n)

In a Replace expression, right-justifies the nth tagged expression in a field at least w characters wide.

If you search for a{[0-9]} and replace with \(10,1), the occurrences of "an" are replaced by the integer and right-justified by 10 spaces.

Left-justified field

\(-w,n)

In a Replace expression, left-justifies the nth tagged expression in a field at least w characters wide.

If you search for a{[0-9]} and replace with \(-10,1), the occurrences of "an" are replaced by the integer and left-justified by 10 spaces.

Prevent match

~(X)

Prevents a match when X appears at this point in the expression.

real~(ity) matches the "real" in "realty" and "really," but not the "real" in "reality."

Alphanumeric character

:a

Matches the expression ([a-zA-Z0-9]).

Matches any alphanumeric character, such as "a", "A", "w", "W", "5", and so on.

Alphabetic character

:c

Matches the expression ([a-zA-Z]).

Matches any alphabetical character, such as "a", "A", "w", "W", and so on.

Decimal digit

:d

Matches the expression ([0-9]).

Matches any digit, such as "4" and "6".

Hexadecimal digit

:h

Matches the expression ([0-9a-fA-F]+).

Matches any hexadecimal number, such as "1A", "ef", and "007".

Rational number

:n

Matches the expression (([0-9]+.[0-9]*)|([0-9]*.[0-9]+)|([0-9]+)).

Matches any rational number, such as "2007", "1.0", and ".9".

Alphabetic string

:w

Matches the expression ([a-zA-Z]+).

Matches any string that contains only alphabetical characters.

Escape

\e

Unicode U+001B.

Matches the "Escape" control character.

Bell

\g

Unicode U+0007.

Matches the "Bell" control character.

Backspace

\h

Unicode U+0008.

Matches the "Backspace" control character.

Tab

\t

Unicode U+0009.

Matches a tab character.

Unicode character

\x#### or \u####

Matches a character given by Unicode value where #### is hexadecimal digits. You can specify a character that is outside the Basic Multilingual Plane (that is, a surrogate) with the ISO 10646 code point or with two Unicode code points that give the values of the surrogate pair.

\u0065 matches the character "e".

Uppercase letter

:Lu

Matches any one uppercase letter.

For example:

:Luhe matches "The" but not "the".

Lowercase letter

:Ll

Matches any one lowercase letter.

For example:

:Llhe matches "the" but not "The".

Title case letter

:Lt

Matches characters that combine an uppercase letter with a lowercase letter, for example, Nj and Dz.

Modifier letter

:Lm

Matches letters or punctuation, such as commas, cross accents, and double prime, that are used to indicate modifications to the preceding letter.

Other letter

:Lo

Matches other letters, such as gothic letter ahsa.

Decimal digit

:Nd

Matches decimal digits, such as 0-9 and their full-width equivalents.

Letter digit

:Nl

Matches letter digits, such as roman numerals and ideographic number zero.

Other digit

:No

Matches other digits, such as old italic number one.

Open punctuation

:Ps

Matches opening punctuation, such as open brackets and braces.

Close punctuation

:Pe

Matches closing punctuation, such as closing brackets and braces.

Initial quote punctuation

:Pi

Matches initial double quotation marks.

Final quote punctuation

:Pf

Matches single quotation marks and ending double quotation marks.

Dash punctuation

:Pd

Matches the dash mark.

Connector punctuation

:Pc

Matches the underscore or underline mark.

Other punctuation

:Po

Matches (,), ?, ", !, @, #, %, &, *, \, (:), (;), ', and /.

Space separator

:Zs

Matches blanks.

Line separator

:Zl

Matches the Unicode character U+2028.

Paragraph separator

:Zp

Matches the Unicode character U+2029.

Non-spacing mark

:Mn

Matches non-spacing marks.

Combining mark

:Mc

Matches combining marks.

Enclosing mark

:Me

Matches enclosing marks.

Math symbol

:Sm

Matches +, =, ~, |, <, and >.

Currency symbol

:Sc

Matches $ and other currency symbols.

Modifier symbol

:Sk

Matches modifier symbols, such as circumflex accent, grave accent, and macron.

Other symbol

:So

Matches other symbols, such as the copyright sign, pilcrow sign, and the degree sign.

Other control

:Cc

Matches Unicode control characters such as TAB and NEWLINE.

Other format

:Cf

Formatting control character, such as the bi-directional control characters.

Surrogate

:Cs

Matches half of a surrogate pair.

Other private-use

:Co

Matches any character from the private-use area.

Other not assigned

:Cn

Matches characters that do not map to a Unicode character.

Alpha

:Al

Matches any one character.

For example, :Alhe matches words such as "The", "then", and "reached".

Numeric

:Nu

Matches any one number or digit.

Punctuation

:Pu

Matches any one punctuation mark, such as ?, @, ', and so on.

White space

:Wh

Matches all kinds of white space, such as publishing and ideographic spaces.

Bidi

:Bi

Matches characters from right-to-left scripts, such as Arabic and Hebrew.

Hangul

:Ha

Matches Korean Hangul and combining Jamos.

Hiragana

:Hi

Matches hiragana characters.

Katakana

:Ka

Matches katakana characters.

Ideographic/Han/Kanji

:Id

Matches ideographic characters, such as Han and kanji.

June 2010

Fixed incorrect expressions in Grouping.

Customer feedback.