Jalatext uses regular expressions from java.util.regex.Pattern to implement inexact search and replace. A regular expression consists of a string where some characters are given special meaning with regard to pattern matching.
Within a regular expression, the following characters have special meaning:
. | matches any single character |
\d | matches any decimal digit |
\D | matches any non-digit |
\n | matches the newline character |
\s | matches any whitespace character |
\xNN | matches hexadecimal character code NN |
\S | matches any non-whitespace character |
\t | matches a horizontal tab character |
\w | matches any word (alphanumeric) character |
\W | matches any non-word (alphanumeric) character |
\\ | matches the backslash ("\") character |
[abc] | matches any character in the set a, b or c |
[^abc] | matches any character not in the set a, b or c |
[a-z] | matches any character in the range a to z, inclusive. A leading or trailing dash will be interpreted literally |
^ | matches at the beginning of a line |
$ | matches at the end of a line |
\B | matches at a non-word break |
\b | matches at a word boundary |
a|b | matches whatever the expression a would match, or whatever the expression b would match. |
? | matches the preceding expression or the null string |
* | matches the null string or any number of repetitions of the preceding expression |
+ | matches one or more repetitions of the preceding expression |
{m} | matches exactly m repetitions of the one-character expression |
{m,n} | matches between m and n repetitions of the preceding expression, inclusive |
{m,} | matches m or more repetitions of the preceding expression |