evolvEd® allows for Regular Expressions in its search and replace functions listed under the Search Menu.
Regular expressions allow more complex search and replace functions to be performed in a single operation.
evolvEd uses Unix-style Regular Expressions (NFA Traditional), table below shows the syntax.
Symbol | Function |
\ | Marks the next character as a special character. "n" matches the character "n". "\n" matches a linefeed or newline character. |
^ | Matches/anchors the beginning of line. |
$ | Matches/anchors the end of line. |
* | Matches the preceding character zero or more times. |
+ | Matches the preceding character one or more times. |
. | Matches any single character except a newline character. |
(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. |
\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 white space including space, tab, form-feed, etc but not newline. |
\S | Matches any nonwhite space character but not newline. |
\t | Matches a tab character. |
\v | Matches a vertical tab character. |
\w | Matches any word character including underscore. |
\W | Matches any nonword character. |
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 "?"
[0-9, a-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 follow:
"(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.