Regular Expressions 101

Explanation

Pro

\ba Unicode word boundary

file the literal text file (case sensitive)

(?i)applies the following effective flags to the remainder of the pattern: gumi

i modifier: insensitive. Matches without distinguishing uppercase and lowercase letters

Group 1([a-z_][a-z0-9_]*+|"(?:[^"]|(?<=\\)")*+"|$[^()]*+(?:\([^()]*+(?:\([^()]*+$[^()]*+)*+\)[^()]*+)*+\)|\|[^|]*+\|)

1st Alternative[a-z_][a-z0-9_]*+

Character Class[a-z_]

a-zone character from a (97₁₀) to z (122₁₀) (case insensitive)

_the literal _ (95₁₀ / 137₈ / 5F₁₆)

Character Class[a-z0-9_]*+

*+matches any number of characters from the set below:

a-zone character from a (97₁₀) to z (122₁₀) (case insensitive)

0-9one character from 0 (48₁₀) to 9 (57₁₀)

_the literal _ (95₁₀ / 137₈ / 5F₁₆)

2nd Alternative"(?:[^"]|(?<=\\)")*+"

"the literal " (34₁₀ / 42₈ / 22₁₆)

Non-Capturing Group(?:[^"]|(?<=\\)")*+

*+repeats the group contents below any number of times:

1st Alternative[^"]

Negated Character Class[^"]

"the literal " (34₁₀ / 42₈ / 22₁₆)

2nd Alternative(?<=\\)"

Positive Lookbehind(?<=\\)

\\the literal \ (92₁₀ / 134₈ / 5C₁₆)

"the literal " (34₁₀ / 42₈ / 22₁₆)

3rd Alternative$[^()]*+(?:\([^()]*+(?:\([^()]*+$[^()]*+)*+\)[^()]*+)*+\)

\(the literal ( (40₁₀ / 50₈ / 28₁₆)

Negated Character Class[^()]*+

*+matches any number of characters outside the set below:

(the literal ( (40₁₀ / 50₈ / 28₁₆)

)the literal ) (41₁₀ / 51₈ / 29₁₆)

Non-Capturing Group(?:$[^()]*+(?:\([^()]*+$[^()]*+)*+\)[^()]*+)*+

*+repeats the group contents below any number of times:

\(the literal ( (40₁₀ / 50₈ / 28₁₆)

Negated Character Class[^()]*+

*+matches any number of characters outside the set below:

(the literal ( (40₁₀ / 50₈ / 28₁₆)

)the literal ) (41₁₀ / 51₈ / 29₁₆)

Non-Capturing Group(?:$[^()]*+$[^()]*+)*+

*+repeats the group contents below any number of times:

\(the literal ( (40₁₀ / 50₈ / 28₁₆)

Negated Character Class[^()]*+

*+matches any number of characters outside the set below:

(the literal ( (40₁₀ / 50₈ / 28₁₆)

)the literal ) (41₁₀ / 51₈ / 29₁₆)

\)the literal ) (41₁₀ / 51₈ / 29₁₆)

Negated Character Class[^()]*+

*+matches any number of characters outside the set below:

(the literal ( (40₁₀ / 50₈ / 28₁₆)

)the literal ) (41₁₀ / 51₈ / 29₁₆)

\)the literal ) (41₁₀ / 51₈ / 29₁₆)

Negated Character Class[^()]*+

*+matches any number of characters outside the set below:

(the literal ( (40₁₀ / 50₈ / 28₁₆)

)the literal ) (41₁₀ / 51₈ / 29₁₆)

\)the literal ) (41₁₀ / 51₈ / 29₁₆)

4th Alternative\|[^|]*+\|

\|the literal | (124₁₀ / 174₈ / 7C₁₆)

Negated Character Class[^|]*+

*+matches any number of characters outside the set below:

|the literal | (124₁₀ / 174₈ / 7C₁₆)

\|the literal | (124₁₀ / 174₈ / 7C₁₆)

Global pattern flags

g modifier: global. Finds all matches instead of stopping after the first

u modifier: unicode. Treats the pattern and subject as UTF-16

m modifier: multiline. Causes ^ and $ to match the start and end of each line, not only the start and end of the string

Match Information

Detailed match information will be displayed here automatically.

Quick Reference

25 tokens

Regular Expression

\bfile (?i)([a-z_][a-z0-9_]*+|"(?:[^"]|(?<=\\)")*+"|\([^()]*+(?:\([^()]*+(?:\([^()]*+\)[^()]*+)*+\)[^()]*+)*+\)|\|[^|]*+\|)

New

set filePath to (path to desktop as text) & "Test.txt"
set theText to read file filePath

Extraction

set filePath to (path to desktop as text) & "Test.txt"
set theText to read file filePath