Learning Regular Expressions

Learn to use regular expressions to define complex text patterns that can be used for powerful search and replace techniques.

Introduction

• Write text matching patterns

1. Get Started with Regular Expressions

• What are regular expressions?
• Choose a regular expression engine
• Notation conventions and modes

2. Characters

• Literal characters
• Metacharacters
• The wildcard metacharacter
• Escaping metacharacters
• Other special characters
• Challenge: Characters
• Solution: Characters

3. Character Sets

• Define a character set
• Character ranges
• Negative character sets
• Metacharacters inside characters sets
• Shorthand character sets
• Challenge: Character sets
• Solution: Character sets

4. Repetition

• Repetition metacharacters
• Quantified repetition
• Greedy expressions
• Lazy expressions
• Challenge: Repetition
• Solution: Repetition

5. Grouping and Alternation

• Grouping metacharacters
• Alternation metacharacters
• Efficiency when using alternation
• Challenge: Grouping and alternation
• Solution: Grouping and alternation

6. Anchors

• Start and end anchors
• Line breaks and multiline mode
• Word boundaries
• Challenge: Anchors
• Solution: Anchors

7. Capturing Groups and Backreferences

• Captures and backreferences
• Backreferences to optional expressions
• Find and replace using backreferences
• Non-capturing group expressions
• Challenge: Backreferences
• Solution: Backreferences

8. Lookaround Assertions

• Positive lookahead assertions
• Negative lookahead assertions
• Lookbehind assertions
• Multiple lookaround assertions
• Challenge: Lookaround assertions
• Solution: Lookaround assertions

Conclusion

• Next steps