How to add hyphen to regex

Question

I have encountered this pattern

(\w+)

and from http://gskinner.com/RegExr/ site I understand that \w = match alpha-numeric characters and underscores, and + = match previous token 1 or more times (not exactly sure what that means).

How can I add the hyphen character to the list?

I tried (\w\-+) but it doesn't work, I don't get any match ...

Note that U+002D is really HYPHEN-MINUS, and that U+2010 is the real HYPHEN character. — tchrist
– tchrist, Commented Feb 24, 2012 at 19:09

Joey · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-25 07:09:25Z

8

You need a character class, denoted by [...]. \w can then be used in the character class and more characters can be added:

[\w-]

Careful though, if you add more characters to match. The hyphen-minus needs to be first or last in a class to avoid interpreting it as a range (or escape it accordingly).

The + is a quantifier, so it goes after a token (where the whole character class is a single token [as is \w]):

([\w-]+)

edited Feb 25, 2012 at 7:09

answered Feb 24, 2012 at 18:23

Joey

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2 Comments

summea Over a year ago

Capturing groups can be pretty useful.

Joey Over a year ago

If (\w+) is the complete regex, then you don't need a group, as the match alone suffices.

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