Literals¶

Literals are the simplest form of pattern matching in regular expressions. They will simply succeed whenever that literal is found.

.anyChar¶

Matches any character except a newline.

Example

ExpressiveRegex()\
.anyChar\
.toRegexString()

"."

.whitespaceChar¶

Matches any whitespace character; equivalent to [ \t\n\r\f\v]. In Unicode it will match the whole range of Unicode whitespace characters.

Example

ExpressiveRegex()\
.whitespaceChar\
.toRegexString()

"\s"

.nonWhitespaceChar¶

Matches any non-whitespace character; equivalent to [^\s].

Example

ExpressiveRegex()\
.nonWhitespaceChar\
.toRegexString()

"\S"

.digit¶

Matches any non-whitespace character; equivalent to [0-9]. In Unicode it will match the whole range of Unicode digits.

Example

ExpressiveRegex()\
.digit\
.toRegexString()

"\d"

.nonDigit¶

Matches any non-digit character; equivalent to [^\d].

Example

ExpressiveRegex()\
.nonDigit\
.toRegexString()

"\D"

.word¶

Matches any alpha-numeric (a-z, A-Z, 0-9) characters, as well as _. In Unicode it will match the range of Unicode alphanumeric characters (letters plus digits plus underscore).

Example

ExpressiveRegex()\
.word\
.toRegexString()

"\w"

.nonWord¶

Matches any non alpha-numeric (a-z, A-Z, 0-9) characters, excluding _ as well.

Example

ExpressiveRegex()\
.nonWord\
.toRegexString()

"\W"

.newline¶

Matches a \n character.

Example

ExpressiveRegex()\
.newline\
.toRegexString()

"\n"

.carriageReturn¶

Matches a \r character.

Example

ExpressiveRegex()\
.carriageReturn\
.toRegexString()

"\r"

.tab¶

Matches a \t character.

Example

ExpressiveRegex()\
.tab\
.toRegexString()

"\t"

.space¶

Matches a character.

Example

ExpressiveRegex()\
.space\
.toRegexString()

" "

.char(c)¶

Matches the exact char c but scape special characters ('\', '.', '^', '$', '|', '?', '*', '+', '(', ')', '[', ']', '{', '}', '-').

Examples

ExpressiveRegex()\
.char('a')\
.toRegexString()

"a"

ExpressiveRegex()\
.char('$')\
.toRegexString()

"\$"

.rawChar(c)¶

Matches the exact char c and don't scape special characters.

Examples

ExpressiveRegex()\
.rawChar('a')\
.toRegexString()

"a"

ExpressiveRegex()\
.rawChar('$')\
.toRegexString()

"$"

.string(s)¶

Matches the exact string s but scape special characters ('\', '.', '^', '$', '|', '?', '*', '+', '(', ')', '[', ']', '{', '}', '-').

Example

ExpressiveRegex()\
.string('2$')\
.toRegexString()

"2\$"

.rawString(s)¶

Matches the exact string s and don't scape special characters.

Example

ExpressiveRegex()\
.string('2$')\
.toRegexString()

"2$"

.range(a, b, exclude)¶

Matches any character that falls between a and b and don't mathch character in the exclude set. a and b must be same type, a<=b and:

if "a"<=a<="z" then "a"<=b<="z"
if "A"<=a<="Z" then "A"<=b<="A"
if "0"<=a<="9" then "0"<=b<="9"
if 0<=a<=9 then 0<=b<=9

exclude must be an string or list or tuple of single char string. By default exclude is None

Examples

ExpressiveRegex()\
.range('a','f')\
.toRegexString()

"[a-f]"

ExpressiveRegex()\
.range('a','f', exclude='bd')\
.toRegexString()

"[acef]"

ExpressiveRegex()\
.range('a','f', exclude=['b','d'])\
.toRegexString()

"[acef]"

.anythingButRange(a, b, exclude)¶

Matches any character, except those that would be captured by the .range.

Examples

ExpressiveRegex()\
    .anythingButRange('a','f')\
.toRegexString()

"[^a-f]"

ExpressiveRegex()\
.anythingButRange('a','f', exclude='bd')\
.toRegexString()

"[^acef]"

.anyOfChars(chars)¶

Matches any of the characters in the provided string chars and scape special characters.

Example

ExpressiveRegex()\
.anyOfChars('abd$')\
.toRegexString()

"[abd\$]"

.anythingButChars(chars)¶

Matches any character, except any of those in the provided string chars and scape special characters.

Example

ExpressiveRegex()\
.anythingButChars('abd$')\
.toRegexString()

"[^abd\$]"