re 1.10.4 · OCaml Package

type t

Regular expression

type re

Compiled regular expression

module Group : sig ... end

Manipulate matching groups.

type groups = Group.t

deprecated Use Group.t

Compilation and execution of a regular expression

val compile : t -> re

Compile a regular expression into an executable version that can be used to match strings, e.g. with exec.

val exec : ?pos:int -> ?len:int -> re -> string -> Group.t

exec re str searches str for a match of the compiled expression re, and returns the matched groups if any.

More specifically, when a match exists, exec returns a match that starts at the earliest position possible. If multiple such matches are possible, the one specified by the match semantics described below is returned.

Examples:

# let regex = Re.compile Re.(seq [str "//"; rep print ]);;
val regex : re = <abstr>

# Re.exec regex "// a C comment";;
- : Re.substrings = <abstr>

# Re.exec regex "# a C comment?";;
Exception: Not_found

# Re.exec ~pos:1 regex "// a C comment";;
Exception: Not_found

parameter pos
optional beginning of the string (default 0)

parameter len
length of the substring of str that can be matched (default -1, meaning to the end of the string)

raises Not_found
if the regular expression can't be found in str

val exec_opt : ?pos:int -> ?len:int -> re -> string -> Group.t option

Similar to exec, but returns an option instead of using an exception.

Examples:

# let regex = Re.compile Re.(seq [str "//"; rep print ]);;
val regex : re = <abstr>

# Re.exec_opt regex "// a C comment";;
- : Re.substrings option = Some <abstr>

# Re.exec_opt regex "# a C comment?";;
- : Re.substrings option = None

# Re.exec_opt ~pos:1 regex "// a C comment";;
- : Re.substrings option = None

val execp : ?pos:int -> ?len:int -> re -> string -> bool

Similar to exec, but returns true if the expression matches, and false if it doesn't. This function is more efficient than calling exec or exec_opt and ignoring the returned group.

Examples:

# let regex = Re.compile Re.(seq [str "//"; rep print ]);;
val regex : re = <abstr>

# Re.execp regex "// a C comment";;
- : bool = true

# Re.execp ~pos:1 regex "// a C comment";;
- : bool = false

val exec_partial : 
  ?pos:int ->
  ?len:int ->
  re ->
  string ->
  [ `Full | `Partial | `Mismatch ]

More detailed version of exec_p. `Full is equivalent to true, while `Mismatch and `Partial are equivalent to false, but `Partial indicates the input string could be extended to create a match.

Examples:

# let regex = Re.compile Re.(seq [bos; str "// a C comment"]);;
val regex : re = <abstr>

# Re.exec_partial regex "// a C comment here.";;
- : [ `Full | `Mismatch | `Partial ] = `Full

# Re.exec_partial regex "// a C comment";;
- : [ `Full | `Mismatch | `Partial ] = `Partial

# Re.exec_partial regex "//";;
- : [ `Full | `Mismatch | `Partial ] = `Partial

# Re.exec_partial regex "# a C comment?";;
- : [ `Full | `Mismatch | `Partial ] = `Mismatch

module Mark : sig ... end

Marks

High Level Operations

type split_token = [

| `Text of string
(*
Text between delimiters
*)
| `Delim of Group.t
(*
Delimiter
*)

]

val all : ?pos:int -> ?len:int -> re -> string -> Group.t list

Repeatedly calls exec on the given string, starting at given position and length.

type 'a gen = unit -> 'a option

val all_gen : ?pos:int -> ?len:int -> re -> string -> Group.t gen

deprecated
Use Seq.all instead.

val all_seq : ?pos:int -> ?len:int -> re -> string -> Group.t Seq.t

deprecated
Use Seq.all instead.

val matches : ?pos:int -> ?len:int -> re -> string -> string list

Same as all, but extracts the matched substring rather than returning the whole group. This basically iterates over matched strings

val matches_gen : ?pos:int -> ?len:int -> re -> string -> string gen

deprecated
Use Seq.matches instead.

val matches_seq : ?pos:int -> ?len:int -> re -> string -> string Seq.t

deprecated
Use Seq.matches instead.

val split : ?pos:int -> ?len:int -> re -> string -> string list

split re s splits s into chunks separated by re. It yields the chunks themselves, not the separator.

Examples:

# let regex = Re.compile (Re.char ',');;
val regex : re = <abstr>

# Re.split regex "Re,Ocaml,Jerome Vouillon";;
- : string list = ["Re"; "Ocaml"; "Jerome Vouillon"]

# Re.split regex "No commas in this sentence.";;
- : string list = ["No commas in this sentence."]

# Re.split ~pos:3 regex "1,2,3,4. Commas go brrr.";;
- : string list = ["3"; "4. Commas go brrr."]

val split_gen : ?pos:int -> ?len:int -> re -> string -> string gen

deprecated
Use Seq.split instead.

val split_seq : ?pos:int -> ?len:int -> re -> string -> string Seq.t

deprecated
Use Seq.split instead.

val split_full : ?pos:int -> ?len:int -> re -> string -> split_token list

split re s splits s into chunks separated by re. It yields the chunks along with the separators. For instance this can be used with a whitespace-matching re such as "[\t ]+".

Examples:

# let regex = Re.compile (Re.char ',');;
val regex : re = <abstr>

# Re.split_full regex "Re,Ocaml,Jerome Vouillon";;
- : Re.split_token list =
  [`Text "Re"; `Delim <abstr>; `Text "Ocaml"; `Delim <abstr>;
  `Text "Jerome Vouillon"]

# Re.split_full regex "No commas in this sentence.";;
- : Re.split_token list = [`Text "No commas in this sentence."]

# Re.split_full ~pos:3 regex "1,2,3,4. Commas go brrr.";;
- : Re.split_token list =
  [`Delim <abstr>; `Text "3"; `Delim <abstr>; `Text "4. Commas go brrr."]

val split_full_gen : ?pos:int -> ?len:int -> re -> string -> split_token gen

deprecated
Use Seq.split_full instead.

val split_full_seq : ?pos:int -> ?len:int -> re -> string -> split_token Seq.t

deprecated
Use Seq.split_full instead.

module Seq : sig ... end

val replace : 
  ?pos:int ->
  ?len:int ->
  ?all:bool ->
  re ->
  f:(Group.t -> string) ->
  string ->
  string

replace ~all re ~f s iterates on s, and replaces every occurrence of re with f substring where substring is the current match. If all = false, then only the first occurrence of re is replaced.

val replace_string : 
  ?pos:int ->
  ?len:int ->
  ?all:bool ->
  re ->
  by:string ->
  string ->
  string

replace_string ~all re ~by s iterates on s, and replaces every occurrence of re with by. If all = false, then only the first occurrence of re is replaced.

String expressions (literal match)

val str : string -> t

val char : char -> t

Basic operations on regular expressions

val alt : t list -> t

Alternative.

alt [] is equivalent to empty.

By default, the leftmost match is preferred (see match semantics below).

val seq : t list -> t

Sequence

val empty : t

Match nothing

val epsilon : t

Empty word

val rep : t -> t

0 or more matches

val rep1 : t -> t

1 or more matches

val repn : t -> int -> int option -> t

repn re i j matches re at least i times and at most j times, bounds included. j = None means no upper bound.

val opt : t -> t

0 or 1 matches

String, line, word

We define a word as a sequence of latin1 letters, digits and underscore.

val bol : t

Beginning of line

val eol : t

End of line

val bow : t

Beginning of word

val eow : t

End of word

val bos : t

Beginning of string. This differs from start because it matches the beginning of the input string even when using ~pos arguments:

let b = execp (compile (seq [ bos; str "a" ])) "aa" ~pos:1 in
assert (not b)

val eos : t

End of string. This is different from stop in the way described in bos.

val leol : t

Last end of line or end of string

val start : t

Initial position. This differs from bos because it takes into account the ~pos arguments:

let b = execp (compile (seq [ start; str "a" ])) "aa" ~pos:1 in
assert b

val stop : t

Final position. This is different from eos in the way described in start.

val word : t -> t

Word

val not_boundary : t

Not at a word boundary

val whole_string : t -> t

Only matches the whole string, i.e. fun t -> seq [ eos; t; bos ].

Match semantics

A regular expression frequently matches a string in multiple ways. For instance exec (compile (opt (str "a"))) "ab" can match "" or "a". Match semantic can be modified with the functions below, allowing one to choose which of these is preferable.

By default, the leftmost branch of alternations is preferred, and repetitions are greedy.

Note that the existence of matches cannot be changed by specifying match semantics. seq [ bos; str "a"; non_greedy (opt (str "b")); eos ] will match when applied to "ab". However if seq [ bos; str "a"; non_greedy (opt (str "b")) ] is applied to "ab", it will match "a" rather than "ab".

Also note that multiple match semantics can conflict. In this case, the one executed earlier takes precedence. For instance, any match of shortest (seq [ bos; group (rep (str "a")); group (rep (str "a")); eos ]) will always have an empty first group. Conversely, if we use longest instead of shortest, the second group will always be empty.

val longest : t -> t

Longest match semantics. That is, matches will match as many bytes as possible. If multiple choices match the maximum amount of bytes, the one respecting the inner match semantics is preferred.

val shortest : t -> t

Same as longest, but matching the least number of bytes.

val first : t -> t

First match semantics for alternations (not repetitions). That is, matches will prefer the leftmost branch of the alternation that matches the text.

val greedy : t -> t

Greedy matches for repetitions (opt, rep, rep1, repn): they will match as many times as possible.

val non_greedy : t -> t

Non-greedy matches for repetitions (opt, rep, rep1, repn): they will match as few times as possible.

Groups (or submatches)

val group : t -> t

Delimit a group. The group is considered as matching if it is used at least once (it may be used multiple times if is nested inside rep for instance). If it is used multiple times, the last match is what gets captured.

val no_group : t -> t

Remove all groups

val nest : t -> t

When matching against nest e, only the group matching in the last match of e will be considered as matching.

For instance:

let re = compile (rep1 (nest (alt [ group (str "a"); str "b" ]))) in
let group = Re.exec re "ab" in
assert (Group.get_opt group 1 = None);

(* same thing but without [nest] *)
let re = compile (rep1 (alt [ group (str "a"); str "b" ])) in
let group = Re.exec re "ab" in
assert (Group.get_opt group 1 = Some "a");

val mark : t -> Mark.t * t

Mark a regexp. the markid can then be used to know if this regexp was used.

Character sets

val set : string -> t

Any character of the string

val rg : char -> char -> t

Character ranges

val inter : t list -> t

Intersection of character sets

val diff : t -> t -> t

Difference of character sets

val compl : t list -> t

Complement of union

Predefined character sets

val any : t

Any character

val notnl : t

Any character but a newline

val alnum : t

val wordc : t

val alpha : t

val ascii : t

val blank : t

val cntrl : t

val digit : t

val graph : t

val lower : t

val print : t

val punct : t

val space : t

val upper : t

val xdigit : t

Case modifiers

val case : t -> t

Case sensitive matching. Note that this works on latin1, not ascii and not utf8.

val no_case : t -> t

Case insensitive matching. Note that this works on latin1, not ascii and not utf8.

Internal debugging

val pp : Format.formatter -> t -> unit

val pp_re : Format.formatter -> re -> unit

val print_re : Format.formatter -> re -> unit

Alias for pp_re. Deprecated

module View : sig ... end

Experimental functions

val witness : t -> string

witness r generates a string s such that execp (compile r) s is true.

Be warned that this function is buggy because it ignores zero-width assertions like beginning of words. As a result it can generate incorrect results.

Deprecated functions

type substrings = Group.t

Alias for Group.t. Deprecated

deprecated Use Group.t

val get : Group.t -> int -> string

Same as Group.get. Deprecated

deprecated Use Group.get

val get_ofs : Group.t -> int -> int * int

Same as Group.offset. Deprecated

deprecated Use Group.offset

val get_all : Group.t -> string array

Same as Group.all. Deprecated

deprecated Use Group.all

val get_all_ofs : Group.t -> (int * int) array

Same as Group.all_offset. Deprecated

deprecated Use Group.all_offset

val test : Group.t -> int -> bool

Same as Group.test. Deprecated

deprecated Use Group.test

type markid = Mark.t

Alias for Mark.t. Deprecated

deprecated Use Mark.

val marked : Group.t -> Mark.t -> bool

Same as Mark.test. Deprecated

deprecated Use Mark.test

val mark_set : Group.t -> Mark.Set.t

Same as Mark.all. Deprecated

deprecated Use Mark.all

module Emacs : sig ... end

Emacs-style regular expressions

module Glob : sig ... end

Shell-style regular expressions

module Perl : sig ... end

Perl-style regular expressions

module Pcre : sig ... end

module Posix : sig ... end

References:

module Str : sig ... end

Module Str: regular expressions and high-level string processing

package re

Compilation and execution of a regular expression

High Level Operations

String expressions (literal match)

Basic operations on regular expressions

String, line, word

Match semantics

Groups (or submatches)

Character sets

Predefined character sets

Case modifiers

Internal debugging

Experimental functions

Deprecated functions