Regex expression Meaning

May i know the below mentioned regex expression meaning. Please do the needful

(.*\)(.+)(.)(\w+$)

Qualifiers is Exactly

The provided regular expression (.*\)(.+)(.)(\w+$) explanation:

  1. (.*\) - This part captures any characters (represented by .*) until it encounters a closing parenthesis ). The .* is a greedy match, meaning it will match as many characters as possible before reaching a closing parenthesis.
  2. (.+) - This part captures one or more characters (represented by +). It’s enclosed in parentheses for grouping.
  3. (.) - This part captures a single character (represented by .). It’s enclosed in parentheses for grouping.
  4. (\w+$) - This part captures one or more word characters (alphanumeric characters and underscores) until the end of the string. \w matches word characters, and $ represents the end of the string.

@T_Y_Raju

Hi @T_Y_Raju ,

Could you let us know what is the data that you are trying to match or if you have checked this Expression before, currently the regex looks invalid but it might also be due to Escape characters.

However, with assumption, removing the Slash (\) will give us a description, Check the below :

image

Hi @T_Y_Raju

  1. (.*)\\): This part matches and captures everything up to the last backslash (“”) character in the path. Here’s the breakdown:
  • (.*): This is a capturing group that matches any character (represented by .*) zero or more times. It’s used to capture everything before the last backslash.
  • \\: This matches a literal backslash character.
  1. (.+): This part captures everything after the last backslash (excluding the backslash itself). It’s represented by (.+), where:
  • (.+): This is another capturing group that matches any character (represented by .+) one or more times. It captures everything after the last backslash.
  1. (\.): This part matches and captures a literal dot (“.”). The dot is a special character in regex, so it needs to be escaped with a backslash to match it literally.
  2. (\w+$): This part matches and captures one or more word characters at the end of the input string. Here’s the breakdown:
  • (\w+): This is a capturing group that matches one or more word characters. Word characters typically include letters, digits, and underscores.
  • $: This asserts the end of the input string. It ensures that the word characters are matched at the very end of the string.

@T_Y_Raju ,

Maybe a Short hand explanation helped with an Example would be like below :

String or Sentences containing a \ (backslash) followed by any number of characters but also a literal . (dot) followed by any number of word characters and also ends with a word character.

Hi @T_Y_Raju

(.*\\)(.+) (\.) (\w+$)

Explanation:

  1. ( and ) are used to define capturing groups.
  2. .* matches any character (.) zero or more times (*). This is a wildcard that matches any sequence of characters.
  3. \\ matches a literal backslash character. The backslash \ is typically an escape character in regular expressions, so to match a literal backslash, you need to escape it with another backslash.
  4. (.+) is another capturing group that matches one or more characters (+), of any type (.).
  5. ( ) matches a space character.
  6. (\.) is a capturing group that matches a literal period or dot character (.). The dot is a special character in regular expressions and needs to be escaped with a backslash to match it literally.
  7. (\w+$) is a capturing group that matches one or more word characters (\w+) followed by the end of the line ($).

Hope it helps!!