Regular Expression Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition

Supported Metacharacters

PCRE supports the metacharacters and metasequences listed in Table 43 through Table 47. For expanded definitions of each metacharacter, see "Regex Metacharacters, Modes, and Constructs.”

Table 1-43. PCRE character representations

Sequence	Meaning
\a	Alert (bell), \x07.
\b	Backspace, \x08; supported only in character class.
\e	Escape character, \x1B.
\n	Newline, \x0A.
\r	Carriage return, \x0D.
\f	Form feed, \x0C.
\t	Horizontal tab, \x09.
\octal	Character specified by a three-digit octal code.
\xhex	Character specified by a one- or two-digit hexadecimal code.
\x{hex}	Character specified by any hexadecimal code.
\cchar	Named control character.
\p{prop}	Character contained by given Unicode block or property.
\P{prop}	Character not contained by given Unicode block or property.

Table 1-44. PCRE character classes and class-like constructs

Class	Meaning
[...]	A single character listed, or contained in a listed range.
[^...]	A single character not listed, and not contained within a listed range.
[:class:]	POSIX-style character class valid only within a regex character class.
.	Any character, except newline (unless single-line mode, PCRE_DOTALL).
\C	One byte; however, this may corrupt a Unicode character stream.
\w	Word character, [a-zA-z0-9_].
\W	Nonword character, [^a-zA-z0-9_].
\d	Digit character, [0-9].
\D	Nondigit character, [^0-9].
\s	Whitespace character, [\n\r\f\t\v ].
\S	Nonwhitespace character, [^\n\r\f\t\v ].
\R	Unicode newline sequence.

Table 1-45. PCRE anchors and zero-width tests

Sequence	Meaning
^	Start of string, ...