Using regular expression?

Question

I have two data testing12334 which can be written as

testing[0-9]*$

in regular expression then I have testing33ab_1abckd which I can write as

testing[0-9][a-z][_][0-9][a-z].

I am trying to make one reg exp that works for both. Struggling any insight?

UPDATE: in shell(.ksh)

In your second example, your regex does not match the text. It's not clear what you're trying to match. My guess is that you mean testing[0-9]+[a-z]+_[0-9]+[a-z]+, which is not what the answers currently given are going to match. Then again, you might mean testing[0-9a-z]+_[0-9a-z]+ or maybe just testing[0-9a-z_]+. You should clarify. — Ryan M
– Ryan M, Commented Sep 17, 2014 at 19:10

anubhava · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-17 19:01:14Z

1

You can use:

\btesting\w+\b

RegEx Demo

Or in shell you can use equivalent:

grep -E '\btesting[[:alnum:]_]+\b'

edited Sep 17, 2014 at 19:01

answered Sep 17, 2014 at 18:51

anubhava

790k67 gold badges603 silver badges671 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

8 Comments

anubhava Over a year ago

You didn't mention ksh in question but yes it will work with grep -E

Ryan M Over a year ago

That doesn't seem equivalent at all. It will match testingX for example

kyle Over a year ago

echo "$a" | grep "^testing\w+\b*$" awk: warning: escape sequence \w' treated as plain w' getting error..

anubhava Over a year ago

You can use: grep -E '\btesting[[:alnum:]_]+\b'

kyle Over a year ago

isn't their easier way? [A-Z0-9]([0-9][A-Z][_][0-9][A-Z]) by this [A-Z0-9] I mean, start with either num or character

|

tripleee · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-18 02:55:02Z

0

Make the suffix part optional

testing[0-9]*([a-z][_][0-9][a-z]+)?$

In basic regular expressions (e.g. traditional grep and sed), you need to backslash the metacharacters. For extended regular expression syntax (basically grep -E and most everything newer than that, save for Emacs) this should work as-is.

edited Sep 18, 2014 at 2:55

answered Sep 17, 2014 at 19:01

tripleee

192k37 gold badges318 silver badges367 bronze badges

3 Comments

kyle Over a year ago

I want if either could start with 0-9 or a-z

tripleee Over a year ago

I just copy/pasted your allegedly working regex. I don't understand your additional requirements. What's testing1**? What's "either"?

tripleee Over a year ago

I added the missing wildcard after testing[0-9] but the rest will have to be specified better.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Using regular expression?

2 Answers 2

8 Comments

3 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

8 Comments

3 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related