Use [A-Za-z]
to include only alphabetic characters.
The expression [a-zA-Z]
also works.
Regular Expression (Delimit with quotes) |
|
String (Delimit with quotes) |
|
Rule 4. Exclusions
To match any character except a list of excluded characters,
put the excluded charaters between
[^
and
]
.
The caret ^
must immediately follow the [
or else it stands for just itself.
Regular Expression | Matches |
---|---|
[^a] | any character except 'a' |
[^aA] | any character except 'a' or 'A' |
[^a-z] | any character except a lower case character |
[^.] | any character not a period |
a^z | a^z |
[a^z] | a or ^ or z |
The character '.' (period) is a metacharacter (it sometimes has a special meaning). But inside of brackets it does not have a special meaning. It stand for just itself. (Most metacharacters, when used inside of brackets, stand for just themselves.)
Bug Alert!
The regular expression [^Z]
matches
all characters other than capital 'Z'.
This includes lower case characters, digits, spaces, ..., everything but 'Z'.
(The bug is to mistakenly assume that [^Z]
matches only uppercase 'A' through 'Y'.
If this is what you want, use [A-Y]
).
Does [^aeiou][aeiou][^aeiou]
match bat?