Package de.uni_trier.wi2.procake.similarity.base.string

Interface SMStringRegexp

All Superinterfaces:
SimilarityMeasure, SMString
All Known Implementing Classes:
SMStringRegexpImpl, SMStringWildcardImpl
public interface SMStringRegexp extends SMString
The query will be interpreted as regular expression in the specified syntax. A regular expression is a sequence of characters that define a pattern. The default syntax ist PERL5, the implementation also supports EGREP and POSIX. The different types of syntax support several expressions. These are listed below.

Similarity

The regular expression query can only indicate, if an expression matches or doesn't match. So the similarity can only be 1 or 0.

For example

  • If the query is "t.st" and the case is "test", then the similarity is 1. . is an operator that matches with any character.
  • If the query is "^[aet]est" and the case is "test", then the similarity is 1. [aet] is a set of characters, ^ compares if the beginnings of the lines matches.
  • If the query is "test\D." and the case is "test1", then the similarity is 0. \D is an operator, that matches with any non-digits. For example "testX" would match.

Brief Background

A regular expression consists of a character string where some characters are given special meaning with regard to pattern matching. Regular expressions have been in use from the early days of computing, and provide a powerful and efficient way to parse, interpret and search and replace text within an application.

Supported Syntax

Within a regular expression, the following characters have special meaning:

Meaning Syntax
Positional Operators
^ matches at the beginning of a line EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
$ matches at the end of a line EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
\A matches the start of the entire string PERL5
\Z matches the end of the entire string PERL5
\b matches at a word break PERL5
\B matches at a non-word break (opposite of \b) PERL5
\< matches at the start of a word EGREP
\> matches at the end of a word EGREP
     
One-Character Operators
. matches any single character EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
.* matches zero or more characters EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
\d matches any decimal digit PERL5
\D matches any non-digit PERL5
\n matches a newline character PERL5
\r matches a return character PERL5
\s matches any whitespace character PERL5
\S matches any non-whitespace character PERL5
\t matches a horizontal tab character PERL5
\w matches any word (alphanumeric) character PERL5
\W matches any non-word character PERL5
\x matches the character x, if x is not one of the above listed escape sequences PERL5
     
Character Class Operators
[abc] matches any character in the set a, b or c EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
[^abc] matches any character not in the set a, b or c EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
[a-z] matches any character in the range a to z (both inclusive) EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
     
Special Sequences in Character Classes
[:alnum:] Any alphanumeric character EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
[:alpha:] Any alphabetic character EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
[:blank:] A space or horizontal tab EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
[:cntrl:] A control character EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
[:digit:] A decimal digit EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
[:graph:] A non-space, non-control character EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
[:lower:] A lowercase character EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
[:print:] Same as graph, but also space and tab EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
[:punct:] A punctual character EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
[:space:] Any whitespace character, including newline and return EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
[:upper:] An uppercase letter EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
[:xdigit:] A valid hexadecimal digit EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
     
Subexpressions and Backreferences
(abc) matches whatever the expression abc would match, and saves it as a subexpression, also used for grouping EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
(?:...) pure grouping operator, doesn't save contents EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
(?#...) embedded comment, ignored by enginge EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
\n where 0 \< n \< 10, matches the same thing the nth subepression matched EGREP, PERL5, POSIX
     
Branching (Alternation) Operator
a|b matches whatever the expression a would match, or whatever the expression b would match EGREP, PERL5
     
Repeating Operators (operate on the previous atomic expression)
? matches the preceding expression or the null string EGREP, PERL5
* matches the null string or any number of repetitions of the preceding expression EGREP, PERL5
+ matches one or more repetitions of the preceding expression EGREP, PERL5
{m} matches exactly m repetitions of the one-character expression EGREP, PERL5
{m,n} matches between m and n repetitions of the preceding expression (inclusive) EGREP, PERL5
{m,} matches m or more repetitions of the preceding expression EGREP, PERL5
     
Valid regular expression primitives
Stingy (Minimal) Maching If a repeating operator (above) is immediately followed by a ?, the repeating operator will stop at the smallest number of repetitions that can complete the rest of the match.

Lookahead Lookahead refers to the ability to match part of an expression without consuming any of the input text. There are two variations to this:

(?=foo) matches at any position where foo would match, but does not consume any characters of the input
(?!foo) matches at any position where foo would not match, but does not consume any characters of the input
Lookahead variants

Unsupported Syntax

Some flavors of regular expression utilities support additional escape sequences, and this is not meant to be an exhaustive list. In the future, gnu.regexp may support some or all of the following:

(?mods) inlined compilation/execution modifiers PERL5
\G end of previous match PERL5
[.symbol.] collating symbol in class expression POSIX
[=class=] equivalence class in class expression POSIX
s/foo/bar/ style expressions as in sed and awk (note: these can be accomplished through other means in the API)
Unsupported Syntax (might be outdated)

Java Integration

In a Java environment, a regular expression operates on a string of Unicode characters, represented either as an instance of java.lang.String or as an array of the primitive char type. This means that the unit of matching is a Unicode character, not a single byte. Generally this will not present problems in a Java program, because Java takes pains to ensure that all textual data uses the Unicode standard.

Because Java string processing takes care of certain escape sequences, they are not implemented in gnu.regexp. You should be aware that the following escape sequences are handled by the Java compiler if found in the Java source:

\b backspace
\f form feed
\n newline
\r carriage return
\t horizontal tab
\" double quote
\' single quote
\\ backslash
\xxx character, in octal (000-377)
\\uxxxx Unicode character, in hexadecimal (0000-FFFF)
Escape sequences that are handled by the Java compiler

In addition, note that the \\u escape sequences are meaningful anywhere in a Java program, not merely within a singly- or doubly-quoted character string, and are converted prior to any of the other escape sequences. For example, the line gnu.regexp.RE exp = new gnu.regexp.RE("\n"); would be converted by first replacing \ with a backslash, then converting \n to a newline. By the time the RE constructor is called, it will be passed a String object containing only the Unicode newline character.

The POSIX character classes (above), and the equivalent shorthand escapes (\d, \w and the like) are implemented to use the java.lang.Character static functions whenever possible. For example, \w and [:alnum:] (the latter only from within a class expression) will invoke the Java function Character.isLetterOrDigit() when executing. It is always better to use the POSIX expressions than a range such as [a-zA-Z0-9], because the latter will not match any letter characters in non-ISO 9660 encodings (for example, the umlaut character, "ü").

Online References

Author:
Rainer Maximini