Regular expressions

In addition to Perl regular expressions, UltraEdit supports two other "legacy" styles: a proprietary regular expression syntax and a basic Unix syntax. We typically recommend using Perl regular expressions, as these are far more powerful and robust than these two legacy styles.

UltraEdit (legacy) style syntax

Symbol	Function
%	Matches the start of line - Indicates the search string must be at the beginning of a line but does not include any line terminator characters in the resulting string selected.
$	Matches the end of line - Indicates the search string must be at the end of line but does not include any line terminator characters in the resulting string selected.
?	Matches any single character except newline.
*	Matches any number of occurrences of any character except newline. At least one occurrence of the preceding character or one of the characters in preceding character set must be found.
+	Matches one or more of the preceding single character/character set. At least one occurrence of the character must be found.
++	Matches the preceding single character/character set zero or more times.
^b	Matches a page break.
^p	Matches a newline (CR/LF) (paragraph) (DOS Files)
^r	Matches a newline (CR Only) (paragraph) (MAC Files)
^n	Matches a newline (LF Only) (paragraph) (UNIX Files)
^t	Matches a tab character
[xyz]	A character set. Matches any characters between brackets.
[~xyz]	A negative character set. Matches any characters NOT between brackets including newline characters.
^{A^}^{B^}	Matches expression A OR B
^	Overrides the following regular expression character
^(...^)	Brackets or tags an expression to use in the replace command. A regular expression may have up to 9 tagged expressions, numbered according to their order in the regular expression. The corresponding replacement expression is ^x, for x in the range 1-9. Example: If ^(h*o^) ^(f*s^) matches "hello folks", ^2 ^1 would replace it with "folks hello".

Note: ^ refers to the character '^' , not the Ctrl key.

Examples:

m?n	matches "man", "men", "min" but not "moon".
t*t	matches "test", "tonight" and "tea time" (the "tea t" portion) but not "tea time" (newline between "tea " and "time").
Te+st	matches "test", "teest", "teeeest" etc. but does not match "tst".
[aeiou]	matches every lowercase vowel
[,.?]	matches a literal ",", "." or "?".
[0-9a-z]	matches any digit, or lowercase letter
[~0-9]	matches any character except a digit (~ means NOT the following)

You may search for an expression A or B as follows:

"^{John^}^{Tom^}"

This will search for an occurrence of John or Tom. There should be nothing between the two expressions.

You may combine A or B and C or D in the same search as follows:

"^{John^}^{Tom^} ^{Smith^}^{Jones^}"

This will search for John or Tom followed by Smith or Jones.

Unix (legacy) style syntax

Symbol	Function
\	Indicates the next character has a special meaning. "n" on it's own matches the character "n". "\n" matches a linefeed or newline character. See examples below (\d, \f, \n etc).
^	Matches/anchors the beginning of line.
$	Matches/anchors the end of line.
*	Matches the preceding single character/character set zero or more times.
+	Matches one or more of the preceding single character/character set. At least one occurrence of the preceding character or one of the characters in preceding character set must be found.
.	Matches any single character except a newline character. Does not match repeated newlines.
(expression)	Brackets or tags an expression to use in the replace command. A regular expression may have up to 9 tagged expressions, numbered according to their order in the regular expression. The corresponding replacement expression is \x, for x in the range 1-9. Example: If (h.*o) (f.*s) matches "hello folks", \2 \1 would replace it with "folks hello".
[xyz]	A character set. Matches any characters between brackets.
[^xyz]	A negative character set. Matches any characters NOT between brackets including newline characters.
\d	Matches a digit character. Equivalent to [0-9].
\D	Matches a nondigit character. Equivalent to [^0-9].
\f	Matches a form-feed character.
\n	Matches a linefeed character.
\r	Matches a carriage return character.
\s	Matches any whitespace including space, tab, form-feed, etc but not newline.
\S	Matches any non-whitespace character but not newline.
\t	Matches a tab character.
\v	Matches a vertical tab character.
\w	Matches any alphanumeric character including underscore.
\W	Matches any character except alphanumeric characters and underscore.
\p	Matches CR/LF (same as \r\n) to match a DOS line terminator.

Note: ^ refers to the character '^' , not the Ctrl key.

Examples:

m.n	matches "man", "men", "min" but not "moon".
Te+st	matches "test", "teest", "teeeest" etc. BUT NOT "tst".
Te*st	matches "test", "teest", "teeeest" etc. AND "tst".
[aeiou]	matches every lowercase vowel
[,.?]	matches a literal ",", "." or "?".
[0-9a-z]	matches any digit, or lowercase letter
[^0-9]	matches any character except a digit (^ means NOT the following)

You may search for an expression A or B as follows:

"(John|Tom)"

This will search for an occurrence of John or Tom. There should be nothing between the two expressions.

You may combine A or B and C or D in the same search as follows:

"(John|Tom) (Smith|Jones)"

This will search for John or Tom followed by Smith or Jones.

If regular expressions aren't enabled for a find/replace, the following special characters are also valid in the Find and Replace fields:

Notation	Represents
^t	Tab character
^p	New line (DOS files - CR/LF, or hex 0D 0A)
^r	Carriage return (hex 0D)
^n	Line feed (new line in Unix based text files) (hex 0A)
^b	Line break
^s	Selected text
^c	Clipboard contents (up to 30,000 characters)
^^	Literal "^" character

Note: ^ refers to the character '^' , not the Ctrl key.

See also:

• Perl regular expressions
• Special search characters