Regular Expressions for Ptsfilter

On this page you will find the details necessary to custom make complex regex patterns for ptsfilter rejection with examples. The four basic types of metacharacters used and listed for composing these patterns are: Single Metacharacters, Quantifiers, Anchors and Escape Characters.

Single-Character Metacharacters: 
   .     Matches any one character.

 [...]   Matches any character listed between the brackets.
 
 [^...]  Matches any character except those listed between 
           the brackets.
Examples:
  c.t      matches "cat" or "cot"
 ca[sin]o  matches "caso", "caio", "cano"
    

 mo[^ne]y  matches any word with "mo" and "y" in that 
             sequence except for the word "money"
 

 
Quantifiers:
   *     Matches the preceding element zero or more times.
The following are "extended" metacharacters which are not
 available on system 5.4:
   ?     Matches any character element zero or one times.

   +     Matches the preceding element zero or one times.
 
{num}    Matches the preceding element num times.
 
{min,max}Matches the preceding element at least min 
           times but no more than max times.

Examples:
  ca?t      matches "cat" or "caat"
  ca*t      matches "cat" or "cat" with any number of a's
  b+ar      matches "bar" or "baar"
  la{3}rge  matches "laarge" , "laaarge" or "laaaarge"
  co{2,4}w  matches "cooow" , "coooow" and "cooooow"

 
Anchors:
   ^     Matches at the start of the line.
 
   $     Matches at the end of the line.
 
  \<     Matches elements at the beginning of a word.
 
  \>     Matches elements at the end of a word.
 

  \b     Matches any word boundary at the beginning or the end of a word. 
  \B     Matches any position that isn't a word boundary at 
           the beginning or end of a word.
Example: 
^boys are.. matches any string or line with "boys" at the beginning
 ..eating$  matches any string or line with "eating" at the end
 \<book
     matches "bookmark" or any word that begins with "book"

 \>book
     matches "handbook" or any other word that ends with "book"
 \bmachine  matches the word "machine" and the string its in
 \Band      matches "and" no matter where it appears in the 
              string(ie:"and" matches "hand" , "stand" , "standard")  

 
Escape Character: 
   \     Escapes any one metacharacter from its special meaning. 
Example: 

   \+       matches up a "plus" sign.(ie: + no longer matches 
              preceding element zero or one times)   

Other Extended Metacharacters:
 (..|..)    Matches either word or phrase inside the parenthesis, 
              to that word or phrase included in a string.
EXAMPLE:
(wrench|ball)     matches any string with either "wrench" or "ball" or 
                    both in it
(phrase1|phrase2) matches any string with either/or phrase1 or phrase2 
                    in it   

Some good examples Of regular expression usage:

[a-z]{1,3}[a-z]{1,9}        catches strings like v<!--748724-->iagra! 

One users use of Ptsfilter and regular expressions

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