# Appendix E. Regular Expressions

Regular expressions in Abyss Web Server conform to the PCRE syntax (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions). This appendix is a quick guide to understand the basics of regular expressions. For an extensive description of their syntax, refer to the PCREPATTERN section in `http://pcre.org/pcre.txt`.

When matching a string (a sequence of characters) with a regular expression, the following rules apply:

- `.` matches any character,

- `*` repeats the previous match zero or more times,

- `+` repeats the previous match one or more times,

- `?` repeats the previous match zero or one time at most,

- `{`n`,`m`}` repeats the previous match n times at least and m times at most (n and m are positive integers),

- `{`n`}` repeats the previous match exactly n times,

- `{`n`,}` repeats the previous match n times at least,

- `{,`m`}` repeats the previous match m times at most,

- `^` is an anchor which matches with the beginning of a string,

- `$` is an anchor which matches with the end of a string,

- `[`set`]` matches any character in the specified set,

- `[^`set`]` matches any character not in the specified set,

- `\` suppresses the syntactic significance of a special character,

- `(`expression`)` groups the characters between the parentheses into a single unit and captures a match for later use as a backreference (`$1`, ... , `$9`).

A set is made of characters or ranges. A range is formed by two characters with a `-` in the middle (as in `0-9` or `a-z`).

Preceding a special character with `\` makes it loose its syntactic significance and match that character exactly. Outside a set, the special characters are `()[]{}.*+?^$\`. Inside a set, the special characters are `[]\-^`.

Example E-1. Examples of Regular Expressions

- `abc`: any string containing the substring `abc` matches with this regular expression.

- `abcd*`: any string containing the substring `abc` followed by zero or more `d` characters matches with this regular expression.

- `abcd?`: any string containing the substring `abc` or `abcd` matches with this regular expression.

- `ab(cd)?`: any string containing the substring `ab` or `abcd` matches with this regular expression.

- `^/dir`: any string starting with the substring `/dir` matches with this regular expression.

- `\.exe$`: any string ending with the substring `.exe` matches with this regular expression. Note here that the character `.` has been escaped to remove its special meaning.

- `^/dir/.*\.exe$`: any string beginning with `/dir` and ending with `.exe` matches with this regular expression.

- `^/dir/[^./]+\.exe$`: any string starting with `/dir` followed by 1 or more characters except `.` and `/`, and followed by `.exe` matches with this regular expression.

Example E-2. Examples of Backreferences

- `/dir/test.exe` matches with `^/dir/([^./]+)\.exe$`. This regular expression has a single group `([^./]+)` which defines the backreference `$1`. In this case, `$1`'s value is `test`.

- `/dir/test.exec` matches with `/dir/([^./]+)\.(exe.*)$`. This regular expression has two groups: `([^./]+)` which defines the backreference `$1`, and `(exe.*)` which defines the backreference `$2`. In this case, `$1`'s value is `test` and `$2`'s value is `exec`.