Any character

.

Matches any single character except a line break.

Zero or more

*

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

One or more

+

Matches at least one occurrence of the preceding expression.

Beginning of line

^

Anchors the match string to the beginning of a line.

End of line

$

Anchors the match string to the end of a line.

Beginning of word

<

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

End of word

>

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

Line break

\n

Matches a platform-independent line break. In a Replace expression, inserts a line break.

Any one character in the set

[]

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

Any one character not in the set

[^...]

Matches any character not in the set of characters following the ^.

Or

|

Matches either the expression before or the one after the OR symbol (|). Mostly used within a group. For example, (sponge|mud) bath matches "sponge bath" and "mud bath."

Escape

\

Matches the character that follows the backslash (\) as a literal. This allows you to find the characters used in regular expression notation, such as { and ^. For example, \^ Searches for the ^ character.

Tagged expression

{}

Matches text tagged with the enclosed expression.

C/C++ Identifier

:i

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

Quoted string

:q

Matches the expression (("[^"]*")|('[^']*')).

Space or Tab

:b

Matches either space or tab characters.

Integer

:z

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

Minimal — zero or more

@

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

Minimal — one or more

#

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

Repeat ntimes

^n

Matches n occurrences of the preceding expression. For example, [0-9]^4 matches any 4-digit sequence.

Grouping

()

Allows you to 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.

For example, if you want to search for - [a-z][1-3] or - [1-10][a-z], you would combine them: ([a-z][1-3]) | ([1-10][a-z]).

nth tagged text

\n

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

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

Right-justified field

\(w,n)

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

Left-justified field

\(-w,n)

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

Prevent match

~(X)

Prevents a match when X appears at this point in the expression. For example, 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]).

Alphabetic character

:c

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

Decimal digit

:d

Matches the expression ([0-9]).

Hexadecimal digit

:h

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

Rational number

:n

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

Alphabetic string

:w

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

Escape

\e

Unicode U+001B.

Bell

\g

Unicode U+0007.

Backspace

\h

Unicode U+0008.

Tab

\t

Matches a tab character, Unicode U+0009.

Unicode character

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

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

Uppercase letter

:Lu

Matches any one capital letter. For example, :Luhe matches "The" but not "the".

Lowercase letter

:Ll

Matches any one lower case letter. For example, :Llhe matches "the" but not "The".

Title case letter

:Lt

Matches characters that combine an uppercase letter with a lowercase letter, such as Nj and Dz.

Modifier letter

:Lm

Matches letters or punctuation, such as commas, cross accents, and double prime, 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 one 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 types of white space, including 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.