9-19 
Character  Meaning  Remarks 
string$ 
Ending sign, string appears only at the 
end of a line.   
For example, regular expression "user$” 
only matches a string ending with 
“user”, not “userA”.   
. 
Full stop, a wildcard used in place of any 
character, including single character, 
special character and blank. 
For example, “.l” can match “vlan” or 
“mpls”. 
* 
Asterisk, used to match a character or 
character group before it zero or multiple 
times. 
For example, “zo*” can match “z” and 
“zoo”; (zo)* can match “zo” and “zozo”. 
+ 
Addition, used to match a character or 
character group one or multiple times 
before it 
For example, “zo+” can match “zo” and 
“zoo”, but not “z”.   
| 
Vertical bar, used to match the whole 
string on the left or right of it 
For example, “def|int” can only match a 
character string containing “def” or “int”.
_ 
Underline. If it is at the beginning or the 
end of a regular expression, it equals ^ or 
$; in other cases, it equals comma, 
space, round bracket, or curly bracket. 
For example, “a_b” can match “a b” or 
“a(b”; “_ab” can only match a line 
starting with “ab”; “ab_” can only match 
a line ending with “ab”. 
- 
Hyphen. It connects two values (the 
smaller one before it and the bigger one 
after it) to indicate a range together with 
[ ]. 
For example, “1-9” means numbers 
from 1 to 9 (inclusive); “a-h” means from 
a to h (inclusive). 
[ ] 
A range of characters, Matches any 
character in the specified range. 
For example, [16A] can match a string 
containing any character among 1, 6, 
and A; [1-36A] can match a string 
containing any character among 1, 2, 3, 
6, and A (with - being a hyphen). 
“]” can be matched only when it is put at 
the beginning of [ ] if it is used as a 
common character in [ ], for example 
[ ]string]. There is no such limit on “[”. 
( ) 
A character group. It is usually used with 
“+” or “*”.   
For example, (123A) means a character 
group “123A”; “408(12)+” can match 
40812 or 408121212. But it cannot 
match 408. 
\index 
Repeats a specified character group for 
once. A character group refers to the 
string in () before \. index refers to the 
sequence number (starting from 1 from 
left to right) of the character group before 
\: if only one character group appears 
before \, then index can only be 1; if n 
character groups appear before index, 
then index can be any integer from 1 to 
n. 
For example, (string)\1 means to repeat 
string for once, and (string)\1 must 
match a string containing stringstring; 
(string1)(string2)\2 means to repeat 
string2 for once, and (string1)(string2)\2 
must match a string containing 
string1string2string2; 
(string1)(string2)\1\2 means to repeat 
string1 for once first, and then repeat 
string2 for once, and 
(string1)(string2)\1\2 must match a 
string containing 
string1string2string1string2. 
[^] 
Used to match any character not in a 
specified range. 
For example, [^16A] means to match a 
string containing any character except 
1, 6 or A, and the string can also contain 
1, 6 or A, but cannot contain these three 
characters only. For example, [^16A] 
can match “abc” and “m16”, but not 1, 
16, or 16A.