【Python 学习笔记】metacharacters in regex

what are metacharacters in python regex?

In regular expressions (regex), metacharacters are special characters that have a specific meaning and function within a regex pattern. They are used to define search patterns beyond literal text, allowing for powerful pattern matching. These characters often need to be escaped (using a backslash \) if you want to match them literally, rather than interpret them in their special function.

Common Regex Metacharacters:

1. . (Dot)
   • Matches any character except a newline (\n).
   • Example: a.c matches "abc", "axc", but not "abxc".
2. ^ (Caret)
   • Anchors the pattern to the start of a string.
   • Example: ^abc matches "abc" at the beginning of the string.
3. $ (Dollar Sign)
   • Anchors the pattern to the end of a string.
   • Example: abc$ matches "abc" at the end of the string.
4. * (Asterisk)
   • Matches 0 or more occurrences of the preceding element.
   • Example: ab*c matches "ac", "abc", "abbc", "abbbc", etc.
5. + (Plus)
   • Matches 1 or more occurrences of the preceding element.
   • Example: ab+c matches "abc", "abbc", "abbbc", but not "ac".
6. ? (Question Mark)
   • Matches 0 or 1 occurrence of the preceding element (makes it optional).
   • Example: colou?r matches both "color" and "colour".
7. [] (Square Brackets)
   • Used for defining character classes (sets of characters).
   • Example: [abc] matches "a", "b", or "c".
   • Example: [a-z] matches any lowercase letter.
8. | (Pipe)
   • Acts as an OR operator.
   • Example: a|b matches "a" or "b".
9. () (Parentheses)
   • Used for grouping expressions and capturing substrings.
   • Example: (abc)+ matches "abc", "abcabc", etc.
10. \ (Backslash)
    • Used to escape special characters (so you can match them literally).
    • Example: \. matches a literal dot, not any character.
11. {} (Curly Braces)
    • Defines quantifiers for the preceding element.
    • Example: a{2,3} matches "aa" or "aaa" (2 to 3 occurrences of "a").
12. - (Hyphen inside brackets)
    • Used to define ranges in a character class.
    • Example: [a-z] matches any lowercase letter.

Escape Sequences in Regular Expressions:

In regex, escape sequences are used to represent special sets of characters, making pattern matching easier.

1. \d
   • Matches any digit (equivalent to [0-9]).
   • Example: \d{3} matches any three digits.
2. \D
   • Matches any non-digit character.
   • Example: \D matches any character that is not a digit.
3. \w
   • Matches any word character (letters, digits, and underscores) (equivalent to [a-zA-Z0-9_]).
   • Example: \w+ matches one or more word characters.
4. \W
   • Matches any non-word character.
   • Example: \W matches spaces, punctuation, and other non-alphanumeric characters.
5. \s
   • Matches any whitespace character (spaces, tabs, line breaks).
   • Example: \s+ matches one or more spaces.
6. \S
   • Matches any non-whitespace character.
   • Example: \S+ matches one or more characters that are not spaces.
7. \b
   • Matches a word boundary (the position between a word and a non-word character).
   • Example: \bword\b matches "word" as a whole word, but not "swordfish".
8. \B
   • Matches a non-word boundary.
   • Example: \Bword\B matches "swordfish", but not "word" as a separate word.

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