Regular Expressions

TestStand supports a limited subset of regular expression syntax that other applications or operating systems support. A regular expression in TestStand can contain any of the following tokens:

Token Explanation Example
. (period) Match 1 character. a.t matches act and apt but not abort or at
* (asterisk) Match 0 or more occurrences of the preceding character or {expression}. 0*1 matches 1 , 01 , 001 , etc. a.* matches act , apt , abort , and at
+ (plus sign) Match 1 or more occurrences of the preceding character or {expression}. 0+1 matches 01 , 001 , 0001 , etc. {ab}+c matches abc, ababc, but not c
? (question mark) Match 0 or 1 occurrences of the preceding character or {expression}. 0?1 matches 1 , 01 , but not 001
| (pipe) Matches either the preceding or following character or {expression}. a3|4b matches a3b or a4b
^ (caret) Matches the beginning of a line. ^int matches any line that begins with int
$ (dollar sign) Matches the end of a line. done$ matches any line that ends with done
{} (curly braces) Groups characters or expressions . {a3}|{4b} matches a3 or 4b
[] (brackets) Matches any one character or range listed within the brackets. [a-z] matches every occurrence of lowercase letters [abc] matches every occurrence of a , b or c
~ (tilde) When appearing immediately after the left bracket, negates the contents of the set. [~a-z] matches anything except lowercase letters [a-z~A-Z] matches all letters and the " ~ " character
\t (backslash t) Matches any tab character. \t3 matches every occurrence of a tab that a 3 follows
\x (backslash x) Matches any character specified in hex. \x2a matches every occurrence of the " * " character
\ (backslash) Used if any of the above characters themselves are to be included in the search. \-\?\\ matches every occurrence of " - " that " ? " and " \ " follow