Regular Expression Meta Character List

The following is a list of meta characters that can be used when "regular expressions" is turned on in the find options.
Regular expressions are Perl-compatible types.

Click here for a sample of find and replace using regular expressions. Regular Expression Samples (our web page)

■Meta Characters that Can be Used in Find Strings

Meta Characters	Description	Usage Examples and Results
(?i)	Identical capitalization of subsequent alphabetic characters.	Example:(?i)abc →Results:Hit on abc, ABC, AbC, etc.
(?-i)	Subsequent letters are case-sensitive.	Example:(?-i)abc →Results:Hit on abc only
(～)	・Groups of patterns. Nesting is possible up to 4 layers. ・Specification of the part to be quoted in the new string of substitution (see the part in \1～)	Example:(AB)+ →Results:AB, ABABAB, etc.
(?:～)	Group of patterns ～ can be any pattern, nested up to 4 layers.	Example:A(?:AB|CD) →Results:Hit AAB, ACD
～|～	Either of the strings on the left or right side of the |. (～ or ～)	Example:ABC|XYZ →Results:Hits ABC, XYZ
[～]	One of the letters ～.	Example 1:[ABC] →Results:Hit A, B, or C. Example 2:[A-G] →Results:Hit A, B, C, D, E, F, or G
[^～]	One character not included in ～.	Example 1:[^ABC] →Results:Hit any other than A, B, or C Example 2:[^A-G] →Results:Hit any of the following except A, B, C, D, E, F, or G
.	Any one character.	Example:A.C →Results:ABC, A1C, AxC, etc.
*	Zero or more repetitions of the immediately preceding pattern (longest match).	Example:ABC* *Repeat C at least 0 times →Results:AB, ABC, ABCCCCCC, etc.
+	One or more repetitions of the immediately preceding pattern (longest match).	Example:ABC+ *Repeat C at least once →Results:ABC, ABCCCCCC, etc.
?	Zero or one repetition of the previous pattern (longest match).	Example:ABC? *Repeat C 0 or 1 time →Results:AB, ABC
*?	Zero or more repetitions of the immediately preceding pattern (shortest match).	Example:ABC*? →Results:AB
+?	One or more repetitions of the immediately preceding pattern (shortest match).	Example:ABC+? →Results:ABC
??	Zero or one repetition of the immediately preceding pattern (shortest match).	Example:ABC?? →Results:AB
{min,max}	min times to max times repetition of the previous pattern (longest match). *The number of iterations that can be specified is from 0 to 2,000; however, if min=max=0 or min>max, a specified value error occurs.	Example:ABC{3,5} *Repeat C 3 to 5 times →Results:ABCCC, ABCCCC, ABCCCCC
{min,}	min or more repetitions of the immediately preceding pattern (longest match).	Example:ABC{3,} *Repeat C at least 3 times →Results:ABCCC, ABCCCC, ABCCCCC, etc.
{num}	num repetitions of the previous pattern The number of repetitions that can be specified is from 1 to 2,000.	Example:ABC{3} *Repeat C 3 times →Results:ABCCC
{min,max}?	min times to max times repetition of the previous pattern (shortest match). *The number of iterations that can be specified is from 0 to 2,000; however, if min=max=0 or min>max, a specified value error occurs.	Example:ABC{3,5}? →Results:ABCCC
{min,}?	min or more repetitions of the immediately preceding pattern (shortest match).	Example:ABC{3,}? →Results:ABCCC
{num}?	num repetitions of the previous pattern. The number of repetitions that can be specified is from 1 to 2,000.	Example:ABC{3}? →Results:ABCCC
^	Beginning of line
$	End of line
\n	LF newline (control code 0x0a). *CR+LF newline (control code 0x0d+0x0a) is also hit.   However, this excludes cases in which a letter immediately precedes the designation (e.g., ABC\n).   To specify only CR+LF newlines, including such cases, use \r\n.
\t	Tab character (control code 0x09).
\s	All whitespace characters (half-width space, \t, \n, \r, \f).
\S	All characters except for white space (space, \t, \n, \r, \f)
\xnn	Specified in Shift JIS character code (0 to 2 hex digits).	Example:\x41 →Results:A
\x{nnnn}	Specified in Unicode (UCS-2) character code (0 to 4 hex digits).	Example:\x{0041} →Results:A
\b	Word boundary.
\B	Non-word boundary.
\d	All Numbers.
\D	All except numbers.
\w	All alphanumeric characters and underscores (any character used in a word).
\W	All but alphanumeric characters and underscores.
\l	All lower case letters.
\L	All but lower case letters (all uppercase letters, numbers, Japanese characters, etc.).
\u	All uppercase alphabetic characters.
\U	All but uppercase letters (all lowercase letters, numbers, Japanese characters, etc.).
\	Escaping meta characters immediately following. (Specifies that the character immediately following is not to be treated as a regular expression symbol (meta-character)).	Example:\\ →Results:Hit "\" for the letter "\"
\a	Alarm (control code 0x07).
\c#	Corresponding control character. *Only one-byte alphabetic characters from A-Z can be specified for #.	Example:\cV →Results:Hit Ctrl-V
\e	Escape (control code 0x1b).
\f	Page break (control code 0x0c).
\r	Return, CR newline (control code 0x0d). *CR+LF newline (control code 0x0d+0x0a) is also hit.   However, this excludes cases where a character is specified immediately after (e.g. \rABC).   To specify only CR+LF newlines, including such cases, use \r\n.
\v	Vertical tab (control code 0x0b).
\Q～\E	Meta characters in the ～ portion are not interpreted as meta characters (No need to escape with "\")	Example:\QC:\Program Files\ABC\E →Results:Hit "C:\Program Files\ABC"
(?=～)	Positive lookahead group. Match only if the string behind the matched location is ～.	Example:ABC(?=1|2) →Results:Hits the ABC portion of ABC1 and ABC2
(?!～)	Negative lookahead group. Matches only if the string behind the matched location is not ～.	Example:ABC(?!1|2) →Results:Hits ABC portions other than ABC1 and ABC2
(?<=～)	Positive lookbehind group. Match only if the string preceding the match location was ～.	Example:(?<=1|2)ABC →Results:Hit the ABC part of 1ABC, 2ABC
(?<!～)	Negtive lookbehind group. Match only if the string in front of the matched location is not ～.	Example:(?<!1|2)LIQUID →Results:Hit ABC part except 1ABC and 2ABC

■Meta Characters that Can be Used in Replacement Strings

Meta Characters	Replace String
\n	Newline character. *This will be the line feed character entered with the [Enter] key.
\t	Tab character (hard tab).
\s	Half-width space.
\0	Whole string found.
\N	A string (substring) matching the find pattern enclosed by the Nth "(" and ")", where N is from 1 to 9.
\	Escaping meta characters immediately following. (Specifies that the character immediately following is not to be treated as a regular expression symbol (meta-character)).