iupMask - Pattern Specification

The pattern to be searched in the text can be defined by the rules given below. Note that such rules are very similar to the ones used by Lua, even though they are not the same. For further information on these patterns, please refer to the Lua Manual.

Notes

Allowed pattern characters

c Matches a c (non-special) character
. Matches any single character
[abc] Matches an a, b or c
[a-d] Matches any character between a and d, including them (just like [abcd])
[^a-dg] Matches any character which is neither between a and d nor a g
/d Matches any digit (just like [0-9])
/D Matches any non-digit (just like [^0-9])
/l Matches any letter (just like [a-zA-Z])
/L Matches any non-letter (just like [^a-zA-Z])
/w Matches any alphanumeric character (just like [0-9a-zA-Z ])
/W Matches any non-alphanumeric character (just like [^0-9a-zA-Z ])
/s Matches any "blank" character (TAB, SPACE, CR)
/S Matches ant non-blank character
/n Matches a newline character
/t Matches a tabulation character
/nnn Matches an ASCII character with a nnn value (decimal)
/xnn Matches an ASCII character with a nn value (hexadecimal)
/special Matches the special character literally (/[, //, /.)
abc Matches a sequence of a, b and c patterns in order
aj bj c Matches a pattern a, b or c
a* Matches 0 or more characters a
a+ Matches 1 or more characters a
a? Matches 1 or no characters a
(pattern) Considers pattern as one character for the above
fpatterng Captures pattern for later reference
/b Anchors to a word boundary
/B Anchors to a non-boundary
^pattern Anchors pattern to the beginning of a line
pattern$ Anchors pattern to the end of a line
@pattern Returns the match found only in the beginning of the text
%pattern Returns the firstmatch found, but searches all the text

 

Examples

(my|his) Matches both my pattern and his pattern.
/d/d:/d/d(:/d/d)? Matches time with seconds (01:25:32) or without seconds (02:30).
[A-D]/l+ Matches names such as Australia, Bolivia, Canada or Denmark, but not England, Spain or single letters such as A.
/l/w* my variable = 23 * width;
^Subject:[^/n]*/n Subject: How to match a subject line.1
/b[ABab]/w* Matches any word that begins with A or B
from:/s*/w+ Captures "sender" in a message from sender