Syntaxe

1. char matches itself, unless it is a special character (metachar): . \ [ ] * + ^ $ and ( ) in posix mode.
2. . matches any character.
3. matches the character following it, except:

        * \a, \b, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v match the corresponding C escape char, respectively BEL, BS, FF, LF, CR, TAB and VT;
          Note that \r and \n are never matched because in Scintilla, regular expression searches are made line per line (stripped of end-of-line chars).
        * if not in posix mode, when followed by a left or right round bracket (see [7]);
        * when followed by a digit 1 to 9 (see [8]);
        * when followed by a left or right angle bracket (see [9]);
        * when followed by d, D, s, S, w or W (see [10]);
        * when followed by x and two hexa digits (see [11]); 

    Backslash is used as an escape character for all other meta-characters, and itself. 

1. [set]

matches one of the characters in the set. If the first character in the set is ^, it matches the characters NOT in the set, i.e. complements the set. A shorthand S-E (start dash end) is used to specify a set of characters S up to E, inclusive. The special characters ] and - have no special meaning if they appear as the first chars in the set. To include both, put - first: [-]A-Z] (or just backslash them).

    example	match
    [-]|]	matches these 3 chars,
    []-|]	matches from ] to | chars
    [a-z]	any lowercase alpha
    [^-]]	any char except - and ]
    [^A-Z]	any char except uppercase alpha
    [a-zA-Z]	any alpha

1. *

any regular expression form [1] to [4] (except [7], [8] and [9] forms of [3]), followed by closure char (*) matches zero or more matches of that form.

1. +

same as [5], except it matches one or more. Both [5] and [6] are greedy (they match as much as possible).

a regular expression in the form [1] to [12], enclosed as \(form\) (or (form) with posix flag) matches what form matches. The enclosure creates a set of tags, used for [8] and for pattern substitution. The tagged forms are numbered starting from 1.

a \ followed by a digit 1 to 9 matches whatever a previously tagged regular expression ([7]) matched.

1. \< \>

a regular expression starting with a \< construct and/or ending with a \> construct, restricts the pattern matching to the beginning of a word, and/or the end of a word. A word is defined to be a character string beginning and/or ending with the characters A-Z a-z 0-9 and _. Scintilla extends this definition by user setting. The word must also be preceded and/or followed by any character outside those mentioned.

1. \l

a backslash followed by d, D, s, S, w or W, becomes a character class (both inside and outside sets []).

• d: decimal digits
• D: any char except decimal digits
• s: whitespace (space, \t \n \r \f \v)
• S: any char except whitespace (see above)
• w: alphanumeric & underscore (changed by user setting)
• W: any char except alphanumeric & underscore (see above)

1. \xHH

a backslash followed by x and two hexa digits, becomes the character whose Ascii code is equal to these digits. If not followed by two digits, it is 'x' char itself.

a composite regular expression xy where x and y are in the form [1] to [10] matches the longest match of x followed by a match for y. [13] ^ $

    a regular expression starting with a ^ character and/or ending with a $ character, restricts the pattern matching to the beginning of the line, or the end of line. [anchors] Elsewhere in the pattern, ^ and $ are treated as ordinary characters.