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diff --git a/man/man7/regexp.7 b/man/man7/regexp.7 new file mode 100644 index 00000000..14a90d0f --- /dev/null +++ b/man/man7/regexp.7 @@ -0,0 +1,150 @@ +.TH REGEXP9 7 +.de EX +.nf +.ft B +.. +.de EE +.fi +.ft R +.. +.de LR +.if t .BR \\$1 \\$2 +.if n .RB ` \\$1 '\\$2 +.. +.de L +.nh +.if t .B \\$1 +.if n .RB ` \\$1 ' +.. +.SH NAME +regexp9 \- Plan 9 regular expression notation +.SH DESCRIPTION +This manual page describes the regular expression +syntax used by the Plan 9 regular expression library +.IR regexp9 (3). +It is the form used by +.IR egrep (1) +before +.I egrep +got complicated. +.PP +A +.I "regular expression" +specifies +a set of strings of characters. +A member of this set of strings is said to be +.I matched +by the regular expression. In many applications +a delimiter character, commonly +.LR / , +bounds a regular expression. +In the following specification for regular expressions +the word `character' means any character (rune) but newline. +.PP +The syntax for a regular expression +.B e0 +is +.IP +.EX +e3: literal | charclass | '.' | '^' | '$' | '(' e0 ')' + +e2: e3 + | e2 REP + +REP: '*' | '+' | '?' + +e1: e2 + | e1 e2 + +e0: e1 + | e0 '|' e1 +.EE +.PP +A +.B literal +is any non-metacharacter, or a metacharacter +(one of +.BR .*+?[]()|\e^$ ), +or the delimiter +preceded by +.LR \e . +.PP +A +.B charclass +is a nonempty string +.I s +bracketed +.BI [ \|s\| ] +(or +.BI [^ s\| ]\fR); +it matches any character in (or not in) +.IR s . +A negated character class never +matches newline. +A substring +.IB a - b\f1, +with +.I a +and +.I b +in ascending +order, stands for the inclusive +range of +characters between +.I a +and +.IR b . +In +.IR s , +the metacharacters +.LR - , +.LR ] , +an initial +.LR ^ , +and the regular expression delimiter +must be preceded by a +.LR \e ; +other metacharacters +have no special meaning and +may appear unescaped. +.PP +A +.L . +matches any character. +.PP +A +.L ^ +matches the beginning of a line; +.L $ +matches the end of the line. +.PP +The +.B REP +operators match zero or more +.RB ( * ), +one or more +.RB ( + ), +zero or one +.RB ( ? ), +instances respectively of the preceding regular expression +.BR e2 . +.PP +A concatenated regular expression, +.BR "e1\|e2" , +matches a match to +.B e1 +followed by a match to +.BR e2 . +.PP +An alternative regular expression, +.BR "e0\||\|e1" , +matches either a match to +.B e0 +or a match to +.BR e1 . +.PP +A match to any part of a regular expression +extends as far as possible without preventing +a match to the remainder of the regular expression. +.SH "SEE ALSO" +.IR regexp9 (3) |