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Package regexp

Overview ▾

Package regexp implements regular expression search.

The syntax of the regular expressions accepted is the same general syntax used by Perl, Python, and other languages. More precisely, it is the syntax accepted by RE2 and described at https://golang.org/s/re2syntax, except for \C. For an overview of the syntax, run

go doc regexp/syntax

The regexp implementation provided by this package is guaranteed to run in time linear in the size of the input. (This is a property not guaranteed by most open source implementations of regular expressions.) For more information about this property, see

http://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/regexp1.html

or any book about automata theory.

All characters are UTF-8-encoded code points.

There are 16 methods of Regexp that match a regular expression and identify the matched text. Their names are matched by this regular expression:

Find(All)?(String)?(Submatch)?(Index)?

If 'All' is present, the routine matches successive non-overlapping matches of the entire expression. Empty matches abutting a preceding match are ignored. The return value is a slice containing the successive return values of the corresponding non-'All' routine. These routines take an extra integer argument, n; if n >= 0, the function returns at most n matches/submatches.

If 'String' is present, the argument is a string; otherwise it is a slice of bytes; return values are adjusted as appropriate.

If 'Submatch' is present, the return value is a slice identifying the successive submatches of the expression. Submatches are matches of parenthesized subexpressions (also known as capturing groups) within the regular expression, numbered from left to right in order of opening parenthesis. Submatch 0 is the match of the entire expression, submatch 1 the match of the first parenthesized subexpression, and so on.

If 'Index' is present, matches and submatches are identified by byte index pairs within the input string: result[2*n:2*n+1] identifies the indexes of the nth submatch. The pair for n==0 identifies the match of the entire expression. If 'Index' is not present, the match is identified by the text of the match/submatch. If an index is negative, it means that subexpression did not match any string in the input.

There is also a subset of the methods that can be applied to text read from a RuneReader:

MatchReader, FindReaderIndex, FindReaderSubmatchIndex

This set may grow. Note that regular expression matches may need to examine text beyond the text returned by a match, so the methods that match text from a RuneReader may read arbitrarily far into the input before returning.

(There are a few other methods that do not match this pattern.)

Example

true
true
false
false

Index ▾

func Match(pattern string, b []byte) (matched bool, err error)
func MatchReader(pattern string, r io.RuneReader) (matched bool, err error)
func MatchString(pattern string, s string) (matched bool, err error)
func QuoteMeta(s string) string
type Regexp
    func Compile(expr string) (*Regexp, error)
    func CompilePOSIX(expr string) (*Regexp, error)
    func MustCompile(str string) *Regexp
    func MustCompilePOSIX(str string) *Regexp
    func (re *Regexp) Copy() *Regexp
    func (re *Regexp) Expand(dst []byte, template []byte, src []byte, match []int) []byte
    func (re *Regexp) ExpandString(dst []byte, template string, src string, match []int) []byte
    func (re *Regexp) Find(b []byte) []byte
    func (re *Regexp) FindAll(b []byte, n int) [][]byte
    func (re *Regexp) FindAllIndex(b []byte, n int) [][]int
    func (re *Regexp) FindAllString(s string, n int) []string
    func (re *Regexp) FindAllStringIndex(s string, n int) [][]int
    func (re *Regexp) FindAllStringSubmatch(s string, n int) [][]string
    func (re *Regexp) FindAllStringSubmatchIndex(s string, n int) [][]int
    func (re *Regexp) FindAllSubmatch(b []byte, n int) [][][]byte
    func (re *Regexp) FindAllSubmatchIndex(b []byte, n int) [][]int
    func (re *Regexp) FindIndex(b []byte) (loc []int)
    func (re *Regexp) FindReaderIndex(r io.RuneReader) (loc []int)
    func (re *Regexp) FindReaderSubmatchIndex(r io.RuneReader) []int
    func (re *Regexp) FindString(s string) string
    func (re *Regexp) FindStringIndex(s string) (loc []int)
    func (re *Regexp) FindStringSubmatch(s string) []string
    func (re *Regexp) FindStringSubmatchIndex(s string) []int
    func (re *Regexp) FindSubmatch(b []byte) [][]byte
    func (re *Regexp) FindSubmatchIndex(b []byte) []int
    func (re *Regexp) LiteralPrefix() (prefix string, complete bool)
    func (re *Regexp) Longest()
    func (re *Regexp) Match(b []byte) bool
    func (re *Regexp) MatchReader(r io.RuneReader) bool
    func (re *Regexp) MatchString(s string) bool
    func (re *Regexp) NumSubexp() int
    func (re *Regexp) ReplaceAll(src, repl []byte) []byte
    func (re *Regexp) ReplaceAllFunc(src []byte, repl func([]byte) []byte) []byte
    func (re *Regexp) ReplaceAllLiteral(src, repl []byte) []byte
    func (re *Regexp) ReplaceAllLiteralString(src, repl string) string
    func (re *Regexp) ReplaceAllString(src, repl string) string
    func (re *Regexp) ReplaceAllStringFunc(src string, repl func(string) string) string
    func (re *Regexp) Split(s string, n int) []string
    func (re *Regexp) String() string
    func (re *Regexp) SubexpNames() []string

Package files

backtrack.go exec.go onepass.go regexp.go

func Match

func Match(pattern string, b []byte) (matched bool, err error)

Match checks whether a textual regular expression matches a byte slice. More complicated queries need to use Compile and the full Regexp interface.

func MatchReader

func MatchReader(pattern string, r io.RuneReader) (matched bool, err error)

MatchReader checks whether a textual regular expression matches the text read by the RuneReader. More complicated queries need to use Compile and the full Regexp interface.

func MatchString

func MatchString(pattern string, s string) (matched bool, err error)

MatchString checks whether a textual regular expression matches a string. More complicated queries need to use Compile and the full Regexp interface.

Example

true <nil>
false <nil>
false error parsing regexp: missing closing ): `a(b`

func QuoteMeta

func QuoteMeta(s string) string

QuoteMeta returns a string that quotes all regular expression metacharacters inside the argument text; the returned string is a regular expression matching the literal text. For example, QuoteMeta(`[foo]`) returns `\[foo\]`.

type Regexp

type Regexp struct {
        // contains filtered or unexported fields
}

Regexp is the representation of a compiled regular expression. A Regexp is safe for concurrent use by multiple goroutines.

func Compile

func Compile(expr string) (*Regexp, error)

Compile parses a regular expression and returns, if successful, a Regexp object that can be used to match against text.

When matching against text, the regexp returns a match that begins as early as possible in the input (leftmost), and among those it chooses the one that a backtracking search would have found first. This so-called leftmost-first matching is the same semantics that Perl, Python, and other implementations use, although this package implements it without the expense of backtracking. For POSIX leftmost-longest matching, see CompilePOSIX.

func CompilePOSIX

func CompilePOSIX(expr string) (*Regexp, error)

CompilePOSIX is like Compile but restricts the regular expression to POSIX ERE (egrep) syntax and changes the match semantics to leftmost-longest.

That is, when matching against text, the regexp returns a match that begins as early as possible in the input (leftmost), and among those it chooses a match that is as long as possible. This so-called leftmost-longest matching is the same semantics that early regular expression implementations used and that POSIX specifies.

However, there can be multiple leftmost-longest matches, with different submatch choices, and here this package diverges from POSIX. Among the possible leftmost-longest matches, this package chooses the one that a backtracking search would have found first, while POSIX specifies that the match be chosen to maximize the length of the first subexpression, then the second, and so on from left to right. The POSIX rule is computationally prohibitive and not even well-defined. See http://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/regexp2.html#posix for details.

func MustCompile

func MustCompile(str string) *Regexp

MustCompile is like Compile but panics if the expression cannot be parsed. It simplifies safe initialization of global variables holding compiled regular expressions.

func MustCompilePOSIX

func MustCompilePOSIX(str string) *Regexp

MustCompilePOSIX is like CompilePOSIX but panics if the expression cannot be parsed. It simplifies safe initialization of global variables holding compiled regular expressions.

func (*Regexp) Copy

func (re *Regexp) Copy() *Regexp

Copy returns a new Regexp object copied from re.

When using a Regexp in multiple goroutines, giving each goroutine its own copy helps to avoid lock contention.

func (*Regexp) Expand

func (re *Regexp) Expand(dst []byte, template []byte, src []byte, match []int) []byte

Expand appends template to dst and returns the result; during the append, Expand replaces variables in the template with corresponding matches drawn from src. The match slice should have been returned by FindSubmatchIndex.

In the template, a variable is denoted by a substring of the form $name or ${name}, where name is a non-empty sequence of letters, digits, and underscores. A purely numeric name like $1 refers to the submatch with the corresponding index; other names refer to capturing parentheses named with the (?P<name>...) syntax. A reference to an out of range or unmatched index or a name that is not present in the regular expression is replaced with an empty slice.

In the $name form, name is taken to be as long as possible: $1x is equivalent to ${1x}, not ${1}x, and, $10 is equivalent to ${10}, not ${1}0.

To insert a literal $ in the output, use $$ in the template.

func (*Regexp) ExpandString

func (re *Regexp) ExpandString(dst []byte, template string, src string, match []int) []byte

ExpandString is like Expand but the template and source are strings. It appends to and returns a byte slice in order to give the calling code control over allocation.

func (*Regexp) Find

func (re *Regexp) Find(b []byte) []byte

Find returns a slice holding the text of the leftmost match in b of the regular expression. A return value of nil indicates no match.

func (*Regexp) FindAll

func (re *Regexp) FindAll(b []byte, n int) [][]byte

FindAll is the 'All' version of Find; it returns a slice of all successive matches of the expression, as defined by the 'All' description in the package comment. A return value of nil indicates no match.

func (*Regexp) FindAllIndex

func (re *Regexp) FindAllIndex(b []byte, n int) [][]int

FindAllIndex is the 'All' version of FindIndex; it returns a slice of all successive matches of the expression, as defined by the 'All' description in the package comment. A return value of nil indicates no match.

func (*Regexp) FindAllString

func (re *Regexp) FindAllString(s string, n int) []string

FindAllString is the 'All' version of FindString; it returns a slice of all successive matches of the expression, as defined by the 'All' description in the package comment. A return value of nil indicates no match.

Example

[ar an al]
[ar an]
[aa]
[]

func (*Regexp) FindAllStringIndex

func (re *Regexp) FindAllStringIndex(s string, n int) [][]int

FindAllStringIndex is the 'All' version of FindStringIndex; it returns a slice of all successive matches of the expression, as defined by the 'All' description in the package comment. A return value of nil indicates no match.

func (*Regexp) FindAllStringSubmatch

func (re *Regexp) FindAllStringSubmatch(s string, n int) [][]string

FindAllStringSubmatch is the 'All' version of FindStringSubmatch; it returns a slice of all successive matches of the expression, as defined by the 'All' description in the package comment. A return value of nil indicates no match.

Example

[["ab" ""]]
[["axxb" "xx"]]
[["ab" ""] ["axb" "x"]]
[["axxb" "xx"] ["ab" ""]]

func (*Regexp) FindAllStringSubmatchIndex

func (re *Regexp) FindAllStringSubmatchIndex(s string, n int) [][]int

FindAllStringSubmatchIndex is the 'All' version of FindStringSubmatchIndex; it returns a slice of all successive matches of the expression, as defined by the 'All' description in the package comment. A return value of nil indicates no match.

Example

[[1 3 2 2]]
[[1 5 2 4]]
[[1 3 2 2] [4 7 5 6]]
[[1 5 2 4] [6 8 7 7]]
[]

func (*Regexp) FindAllSubmatch

func (re *Regexp) FindAllSubmatch(b []byte, n int) [][][]byte

FindAllSubmatch is the 'All' version of FindSubmatch; it returns a slice of all successive matches of the expression, as defined by the 'All' description in the package comment. A return value of nil indicates no match.

func (*Regexp) FindAllSubmatchIndex

func (re *Regexp) FindAllSubmatchIndex(b []byte, n int) [][]int

FindAllSubmatchIndex is the 'All' version of FindSubmatchIndex; it returns a slice of all successive matches of the expression, as defined by the 'All' description in the package comment. A return value of nil indicates no match.

func (*Regexp) FindIndex

func (re *Regexp) FindIndex(b []byte) (loc []int)

FindIndex returns a two-element slice of integers defining the location of the leftmost match in b of the regular expression. The match itself is at b[loc[0]:loc[1]]. A return value of nil indicates no match.

func (*Regexp) FindReaderIndex

func (re *Regexp) FindReaderIndex(r io.RuneReader) (loc []int)

FindReaderIndex returns a two-element slice of integers defining the location of the leftmost match of the regular expression in text read from the RuneReader. The match text was found in the input stream at byte offset loc[0] through loc[1]-1. A return value of nil indicates no match.

func (*Regexp) FindReaderSubmatchIndex

func (re *Regexp) FindReaderSubmatchIndex(r io.RuneReader) []int

FindReaderSubmatchIndex returns a slice holding the index pairs identifying the leftmost match of the regular expression of text read by the RuneReader, and the matches, if any, of its subexpressions, as defined by the 'Submatch' and 'Index' descriptions in the package comment. A return value of nil indicates no match.

func (*Regexp) FindString

func (re *Regexp) FindString(s string) string

FindString returns a string holding the text of the leftmost match in s of the regular expression. If there is no match, the return value is an empty string, but it will also be empty if the regular expression successfully matches an empty string. Use FindStringIndex or FindStringSubmatch if it is necessary to distinguish these cases.

Example

"foo"
""

func (*Regexp) FindStringIndex

func (re *Regexp) FindStringIndex(s string) (loc []int)

FindStringIndex returns a two-element slice of integers defining the location of the leftmost match in s of the regular expression. The match itself is at s[loc[0]:loc[1]]. A return value of nil indicates no match.

Example

[1 3]
true

func (*Regexp) FindStringSubmatch

func (re *Regexp) FindStringSubmatch(s string) []string

FindStringSubmatch returns a slice of strings holding the text of the leftmost match of the regular expression in s and the matches, if any, of its subexpressions, as defined by the 'Submatch' description in the package comment. A return value of nil indicates no match.

Example

["axxxbyc" "xxx" "y"]
["abzc" "" "z"]

func (*Regexp) FindStringSubmatchIndex

func (re *Regexp) FindStringSubmatchIndex(s string) []int

FindStringSubmatchIndex returns a slice holding the index pairs identifying the leftmost match of the regular expression in s and the matches, if any, of its subexpressions, as defined by the 'Submatch' and 'Index' descriptions in the package comment. A return value of nil indicates no match.

func (*Regexp) FindSubmatch

func (re *Regexp) FindSubmatch(b []byte) [][]byte

FindSubmatch returns a slice of slices holding the text of the leftmost match of the regular expression in b and the matches, if any, of its subexpressions, as defined by the 'Submatch' descriptions in the package comment. A return value of nil indicates no match.

func (*Regexp) FindSubmatchIndex

func (re *Regexp) FindSubmatchIndex(b []byte) []int

FindSubmatchIndex returns a slice holding the index pairs identifying the leftmost match of the regular expression in b and the matches, if any, of its subexpressions, as defined by the 'Submatch' and 'Index' descriptions in the package comment. A return value of nil indicates no match.

func (*Regexp) LiteralPrefix

func (re *Regexp) LiteralPrefix() (prefix string, complete bool)

LiteralPrefix returns a literal string that must begin any match of the regular expression re. It returns the boolean true if the literal string comprises the entire regular expression.

func (*Regexp) Longest

func (re *Regexp) Longest()

Longest makes future searches prefer the leftmost-longest match. That is, when matching against text, the regexp returns a match that begins as early as possible in the input (leftmost), and among those it chooses a match that is as long as possible.

func (*Regexp) Match

func (re *Regexp) Match(b []byte) bool

Match reports whether the Regexp matches the byte slice b.

func (*Regexp) MatchReader

func (re *Regexp) MatchReader(r io.RuneReader) bool

MatchReader reports whether the Regexp matches the text read by the RuneReader.

func (*Regexp) MatchString

func (re *Regexp) MatchString(s string) bool

MatchString reports whether the Regexp matches the string s.

func (*Regexp) NumSubexp

func (re *Regexp) NumSubexp() int

NumSubexp returns the number of parenthesized subexpressions in this Regexp.

func (*Regexp) ReplaceAll

func (re *Regexp) ReplaceAll(src, repl []byte) []byte

ReplaceAll returns a copy of src, replacing matches of the Regexp with the replacement text repl. Inside repl, $ signs are interpreted as in Expand, so for instance $1 represents the text of the first submatch.

func (*Regexp) ReplaceAllFunc

func (re *Regexp) ReplaceAllFunc(src []byte, repl func([]byte) []byte) []byte

ReplaceAllFunc returns a copy of src in which all matches of the Regexp have been replaced by the return value of function repl applied to the matched byte slice. The replacement returned by repl is substituted directly, without using Expand.

func (*Regexp) ReplaceAllLiteral

func (re *Regexp) ReplaceAllLiteral(src, repl []byte) []byte

ReplaceAllLiteral returns a copy of src, replacing matches of the Regexp with the replacement bytes repl. The replacement repl is substituted directly, without using Expand.

func (*Regexp) ReplaceAllLiteralString

func (re *Regexp) ReplaceAllLiteralString(src, repl string) string

ReplaceAllLiteralString returns a copy of src, replacing matches of the Regexp with the replacement string repl. The replacement repl is substituted directly, without using Expand.

Example

-T-T-
-$1-$1-
-${1}-${1}-

func (*Regexp) ReplaceAllString

func (re *Regexp) ReplaceAllString(src, repl string) string

ReplaceAllString returns a copy of src, replacing matches of the Regexp with the replacement string repl. Inside repl, $ signs are interpreted as in Expand, so for instance $1 represents the text of the first submatch.

Example

-T-T-
--xx-
---
-W-xxW-

func (*Regexp) ReplaceAllStringFunc

func (re *Regexp) ReplaceAllStringFunc(src string, repl func(string) string) string

ReplaceAllStringFunc returns a copy of src in which all matches of the Regexp have been replaced by the return value of function repl applied to the matched substring. The replacement returned by repl is substituted directly, without using Expand.

func (*Regexp) Split

func (re *Regexp) Split(s string, n int) []string

Split slices s into substrings separated by the expression and returns a slice of the substrings between those expression matches.

The slice returned by this method consists of all the substrings of s not contained in the slice returned by FindAllString. When called on an expression that contains no metacharacters, it is equivalent to strings.SplitN.

Example:

s := regexp.MustCompile("a*").Split("abaabaccadaaae", 5)
// s: ["", "b", "b", "c", "cadaaae"]

The count determines the number of substrings to return:

n > 0: at most n substrings; the last substring will be the unsplit remainder.
n == 0: the result is nil (zero substrings)
n < 0: all substrings

Example

[b n n ]
[]
[banana]
[b nana]
[pi a]
[]
[pizza]
[pi a]

func (*Regexp) String

func (re *Regexp) String() string

String returns the source text used to compile the regular expression.

func (*Regexp) SubexpNames

func (re *Regexp) SubexpNames() []string

SubexpNames returns the names of the parenthesized subexpressions in this Regexp. The name for the first sub-expression is names[1], so that if m is a match slice, the name for m[i] is SubexpNames()[i]. Since the Regexp as a whole cannot be named, names[0] is always the empty string. The slice should not be modified.

Example

true
["" "first" "last"]
${last} ${first}
Turing Alan

Subdirectories

Name Synopsis
..
syntax Package syntax parses regular expressions into parse trees and compiles parse trees into programs.