Supported Metacharacters
PHP supports the metacharacters and metasequences listed in Table 22 through Table 26. For expanded definitions of each metacharacter, see "Regex Metacharacters, Modes, and Constructs.”
Table 1-22. PHP character representations
Sequence | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Alert (bell), |
| Backspace, |
| Esc character, |
| Newline, |
| Carriage return, |
| Form feed, |
| Horizontal tab, \ |
| Character specified by a three-digit octal code. |
| Character specified by a one- or two-digit hexadecimal code. |
| Character specified by any hexadecimal code. |
| Named control character. |
Table 1-23. PHP character classes and class-like constructs
Class | Meaning |
|---|---|
| A single character listed or contained within a listed range. |
| A single character not listed and not contained within a listed range. |
| POSIX-style character class (valid only within a regex character class). |
| Any character except newline (unless single-line mode, |
| One byte (this might corrupt a Unicode character stream, however). |
| Word character, |
| Nonword character, |
| Digit character, |
| Nondigit character, |
| Whitespace character, |
| Nonwhitespace character, |
Table 1-24. PHP anchors and zero-width tests
Sequence | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Start of string, or the point after any newline if in multiline match mode, |
| Start of search string, in all match modes. |
| End of search string, or the point before a string-ending ... |