Some
metacharacters are valid for one
program but not for another. Those available to a given program are
marked by a checkmark
() in the following
table. Notes are provided after the table, and full descriptions of
metacharacters are in the following section.
Symbol |
ed |
vi |
sed |
gawk |
grep |
egrep |
Action |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Match any character (can match newline in gawk). |
* |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Match zero or more preceding elements. |
^ |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Match beginning of line or string. |
$ |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Match end of line or string. |
\ |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Escape following character. |
[ ] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Match one from a list or range. |
\( \) |
|
|
|
Store pattern for later replay. |
|||
\n |
|
|
|
Reuse matched text stored in nth \( \). |
|||
{ } |
|
Match a range of instances. |
|||||
\{ \} |
|
|
|
|
Match a range of instances. |
||
\< |
|
Match word's beginning. |
|||||
\> |
|
Match word's end. |
|||||
+ |
|
|
|
Match one or more preceding elements. |
|||
? |
|
|
|
Match zero or one preceding elements. |
|||
| |
|
|
Separate choices to match. |
||||
( ) |
|
|
Group expressions to match. |
On some Linux systems, grep is a link to egrep, so whenever you run grep you actually get egrep behavior.
In ed, vi, and sed, when you perform a search-and-replace (substitute) operation, the metacharacters in this table apply to the pattern you are searching for but not to the string replacing it.
In gawk, { } is specified in the POSIX standard and is supported by gawk if you run it with the -Wre-interval option.
In ed, vi, and sed, the following additional metacharacters are valid only in a replacement pattern:
Symbol |
ex |
sed |
ed |
Action |
---|---|---|---|---|
\ |
|
|
|
Escape following character. |
\n |
|
|
|
Reuse matched text stored in nth \( \). |
& |
|
|
Reuse previous search pattern. |
|
~ |
|
Reuse previous replacement pattern. |
||
\e |
|
Turn off previous \L or \U. |
||
\E |
|
Turn off previous \L or \U. |
||
\l |
|
Change single following character to lowercase. |
||
\L |
|
Change following characters to lowercase until \E is encountered. |
||
\u |
|
Change single following character to uppercase. |
||
\U |
|
Change following characters to uppercase until \E is encountered. |
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