Syntax of Regular Expressions

The syntax of regular expressions can be broken down into:

• Single character strings

• Character string patterns

• Search strings

• Replacement strings

• Simplified regular expressions

Using the syntax for single characters and character strings, regular expressions can be created that match whole character strings or substrings of character strings. The syntax for find and replace offers some additional elements that support finding and replacing for substrings in character strings.

The special characters that are valid in regular expressions are summarized in:

• Special characters in regular expressions.