Regex

A glib.regex.Regex is the "compiled" form of a regular expression pattern.

glib.regex.Regex implements regular expression pattern matching using syntax and semantics similar to Perl regular expression. See the PCRE documentation for the syntax definition.

Some functions accept a @start_position argument, setting it differs from just passing over a shortened string and setting G_REGEX_MATCH_NOTBOL in the case of a pattern that begins with any kind of lookbehind assertion. For example, consider the pattern "\Biss\B" which finds occurrences of "iss" in the middle of words. ("\B" matches only if the current position in the subject is not a word boundary.) When applied to the string "Mississipi" from the fourth byte, namely "issipi", it does not match, because "\B" is always false at the start of the subject, which is deemed to be a word boundary. However, if the entire string is passed , but with @start_position set to 4, it finds the second occurrence of "iss" because it is able to look behind the starting point to discover that it is preceded by a letter.

Note that, unless you set the G_REGEX_RAW flag, all the strings passed to these functions must be encoded in UTF-8. The lengths and the positions inside the strings are in bytes and not in characters, so, for instance, "\xc3\xa0" (i.e. "à") is two bytes long but it is treated as a single character. If you set G_REGEX_RAW the strings can be non-valid UTF-8 strings and a byte is treated as a character, so "\xc3\xa0" is two bytes and two characters long.

When matching a pattern, "\n" matches only against a "\n" character in the string, and "\r" matches only a "\r" character. To match any newline sequence use "\R". This particular group matches either the two-character sequence CR + LF ("\r\n"), or one of the single characters LF (linefeed, U+000A, "\n"), VT vertical tab, U+000B, "\v"), FF (formfeed, U+000C, "\f"), CR (carriage return, U+000D, "\r"), NEL (next line, U+0085), LS (line separator, U+2028), or PS (paragraph separator, U+2029).

The behaviour of the dot, circumflex, and dollar metacharacters are affected by newline characters, the default is to recognize any newline character (the same characters recognized by "\R"). This can be changed with G_REGEX_NEWLINE_CR, G_REGEX_NEWLINE_LF and G_REGEX_NEWLINE_CRLF compile options, and with G_REGEX_MATCH_NEWLINE_ANY, G_REGEX_MATCH_NEWLINE_CR, G_REGEX_MATCH_NEWLINE_LF and G_REGEX_MATCH_NEWLINE_CRLF match options. These settings are also relevant when compiling a pattern if G_REGEX_EXTENDED is set, and an unescaped "#" outside a character class is encountered. This indicates a comment that lasts until after the next newline.

Creating and manipulating the same glib.regex.Regex structure from different threads is not a problem as glib.regex.Regex does not modify its internal state between creation and destruction, on the other hand glib.match_info.MatchInfo is not threadsafe.

The regular expressions low-level functionalities are obtained through the excellent PCRE library written by Philip Hazel.

class Regex : Boxed {

this(string pattern, glib.types.RegexCompileFlags compileOptions, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions);

int getCaptureCount();

glib.types.RegexCompileFlags getCompileFlags();

bool getHasCrOrLf();

glib.types.RegexMatchFlags getMatchFlags();

int getMaxBackref();

int getMaxLookbehind();

string getPattern();

int getStringNumber(string name);

bool match(string string_, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions, glib.match_info.MatchInfo matchInfo);

bool matchAll(string string_, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions, glib.match_info.MatchInfo matchInfo);

bool matchAllFull(string string_, int startPosition, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions, glib.match_info.MatchInfo matchInfo);

bool matchFull(string string_, int startPosition, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions, glib.match_info.MatchInfo matchInfo);

string replace(string string_, int startPosition, string replacement, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions);

string replaceEval(string string_, int startPosition, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions, glib.types.RegexEvalCallback eval);

string replaceLiteral(string string_, int startPosition, string replacement, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions);

string[] split(string string_, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions);

string[] splitFull(string string_, int startPosition, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions, int maxTokens);

static bool checkReplacement(string replacement, bool hasReferences);

static glib.types.Quark errorQuark();

static string escapeNul(string string_);

static string escapeString(string string_);

static bool matchSimple(string pattern, string string_, glib.types.RegexCompileFlags compileOptions, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions);

static string[] splitSimple(string pattern, string string_, glib.types.RegexCompileFlags compileOptions, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions);

}

Constructors

this this(string pattern, glib.types.RegexCompileFlags compileOptions, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions): Compiles the regular expression to an internal form, and does the initial setup of the #GRegex structure.

Members

Functions

getCaptureCount int getCaptureCount(): Returns the number of capturing subpatterns in the pattern.
getCompileFlags glib.types.RegexCompileFlags getCompileFlags(): Returns the compile options that regex was created with.
getHasCrOrLf bool getHasCrOrLf(): Checks whether the pattern contains explicit CR or LF references.
getMatchFlags glib.types.RegexMatchFlags getMatchFlags(): Returns the match options that regex was created with.
getMaxBackref int getMaxBackref(): Returns the number of the highest back reference in the pattern, or 0 if the pattern does not contain back references.
getMaxLookbehind int getMaxLookbehind(): Gets the number of characters in the longest lookbehind assertion in the pattern. This information is useful when doing multi-segment matching using the partial matching facilities.
getPattern string getPattern(): Gets the pattern string associated with regex, i.e. a copy of the string passed to glib.regex.Regex.new_.
getStringNumber int getStringNumber(string name): Retrieves the number of the subexpression named name.
match bool match(string string_, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions, glib.match_info.MatchInfo matchInfo): Scans for a match in string for the pattern in regex. The match_options are combined with the match options specified when the regex structure was created, letting you have more flexibility in reusing #GRegex structures.
matchAll bool matchAll(string string_, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions, glib.match_info.MatchInfo matchInfo): Using the standard algorithm for regular expression matching only the longest match in the string is retrieved. This function uses a different algorithm so it can retrieve all the possible matches. For more documentation see glib.regex.Regex.matchAllFull.
matchAllFull bool matchAllFull(string string_, int startPosition, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions, glib.match_info.MatchInfo matchInfo): Using the standard algorithm for regular expression matching only the longest match in the string is retrieved, it is not possible to obtain all the available matches. For instance matching "<a> <b> <c>" against the pattern "<.*>" you get "<a> <b> <c>".
matchFull bool matchFull(string string_, int startPosition, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions, glib.match_info.MatchInfo matchInfo): Scans for a match in string for the pattern in regex. The match_options are combined with the match options specified when the regex structure was created, letting you have more flexibility in reusing #GRegex structures.
replace string replace(string string_, int startPosition, string replacement, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions): Replaces all occurrences of the pattern in regex with the replacement text. Backreferences of the form '\number' or '\g<number>' in the replacement text are interpolated by the number-th captured subexpression of the match, '\g<name>' refers to the captured subexpression with the given name. '\0' refers to the complete match, but '\0' followed by a number is the octal representation of a character. To include a literal '\' in the replacement, write '\\\\'.
replaceEval string replaceEval(string string_, int startPosition, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions, glib.types.RegexEvalCallback eval): Replaces occurrences of the pattern in regex with the output of eval for that occurrence.
replaceLiteral string replaceLiteral(string string_, int startPosition, string replacement, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions): Replaces all occurrences of the pattern in regex with the replacement text. replacement is replaced literally, to include backreferences use glib.regex.Regex.replace.
split string[] split(string string_, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions): Breaks the string on the pattern, and returns an array of the tokens. If the pattern contains capturing parentheses, then the text for each of the substrings will also be returned. If the pattern does not match anywhere in the string, then the whole string is returned as the first token.
splitFull string[] splitFull(string string_, int startPosition, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions, int maxTokens): Breaks the string on the pattern, and returns an array of the tokens. If the pattern contains capturing parentheses, then the text for each of the substrings will also be returned. If the pattern does not match anywhere in the string, then the whole string is returned as the first token.

Static functions

checkReplacement bool checkReplacement(string replacement, bool hasReferences): Checks whether replacement is a valid replacement string (see glib.regex.Regex.replace), i.e. that all escape sequences in it are valid.
errorQuark glib.types.Quark errorQuark()
escapeNul string escapeNul(string string_): Escapes the nul characters in string to "\x00". It can be used to compile a regex with embedded nul characters.
escapeString string escapeString(string string_): Escapes the special characters used for regular expressions in string, for instance "a.b*c" becomes "a\.b\*c". This function is useful to dynamically generate regular expressions.
matchSimple bool matchSimple(string pattern, string string_, glib.types.RegexCompileFlags compileOptions, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions): Scans for a match in string for pattern.
splitSimple string[] splitSimple(string pattern, string string_, glib.types.RegexCompileFlags compileOptions, glib.types.RegexMatchFlags matchOptions): Breaks the string on the pattern, and returns an array of the tokens. If the pattern contains capturing parentheses, then the text for each of the substrings will also be returned. If the pattern does not match anywhere in the string, then the whole string is returned as the first token.

Inherited Members

From Boxed

cInstancePtr void* cInstancePtr;: Pointer to the C boxed value
getType GType getType(): Get the GType of this boxed type.
gType GType gType [@property getter]: Boxed GType property.
self Boxed self(): Convenience method to return this cast to a type. For use in D with statements.
copy_ void* copy_(): Make a copy of the wrapped C boxed data.
boxedCopy void* boxedCopy(void* cBoxed): Copy a C boxed value using g_boxed_copy.
boxedFree void boxedFree(void* cBoxed): Free a C boxed value using g_boxed_free.

glib regex classes

Regex