# Java: Basic Regular expression summary

These are the main regular expression characters that you should learn. For the full set of regular expression characters, see Regular expression summary. [Attribution: Much of this is copied from the Java API documentation. I'm rewriting it and will Sun's text soon.]

## Character classes

Character classes provide a way to specify a set of characters. The set can be explicitly enclosed in []. The set can also be expressed by what must not be in it by beginning the set with a caret, "^". There are a number of predefined sets (eg, \d, \s, etc). The minus, "-", can be used to indicate a range of character values. Altho a character class matches only one character, a quantifier following it can be used to match multiple characters.
`[abc]` | `a`, `b`, or `c` (simple class)
`[^abc]` | Any character except `a`, `b`, or `c` (negation)
`[a-zA-Z]` | `a` through `z` or `A` through `Z`, inclusive (range)
Predefined character classes
`.` | Any character (may or may not match line terminators)
`\d` | A digit: `[0-9]`
`\D` | A non-digit: `[^0-9]`
`\s` | A whitespace character: `[ \t\n\x0B\f\r]`
`\S` | A non-whitespace character: `[^\s]`
`\w` | A word character: `[a-zA-Z_0-9]`
`\W` | A non-word character: `[^\w]`

## Quantifiers (repeating the previous element)

Greedy quantifiers - Expand as much as possible
X`?` | X, once or not at all
X`*` | X, zero or more times
X`+` | X, one or more times
X`{`n`}` | X, exactly n times
X`{`n`,}` | X, at least n times
X`{`n`,`m`}` | X, at least n but not more than m times
Reluctant quantifiers - Expand only if forced by later failure to match
X`??` | X, once or not at all
X`*?` | X, zero or more times
X`+?` | X, one or more times
X`{`n`}?` | X, exactly n times
X`{`n`,}?` | X, at least n times
X`{`n`,`m`}?` | X, at least n but not more than m times

## Boundary matchers - Zero-width matches.

`^` | The beginning of a line. Very useful.
`$` | The end of a line. Very userful. `^$` matches all emtpy lines.
`\b` | A word boundary
`\B` | A non-word boundary
`\A` | The beginning of the input
`\G` | The end of the previous match
`\Z` | The end of the input but for the final terminator, if any
`\z` | The end of the input

## Other

Logical operators
XY | X followed by Y
X`|`Y | Either X or Y
Grouping - Parentheses both group and create a numbered element that can be used later.
`(`X`)` | X. This capturing group is remembered so it can be referenced later. Numbered starting at 1.
Quotation
`\` | Nothing, but quotes the following character.
Characters
x | The character x
`\\` | The backslash character
`\t` | The tab character (`'\u0009'`)
`\n` | The newline (line feed) character (`'\u000A'`)
`\r` | The carriage-return character (`'\u000D'`)
`\f` | The form-feed character (`'\u000C'`)