A dot .
in a regular expression matches any single character. In order for regex to match a dot, the dot has to be escaped: \.
It has been pointed out to me that inside square brackets []
a dot does not have to be escaped. For example, the expression:
[.]{3}
would match ...
string.
Doesn't it, really? And if so, is it true for all regex standards?
In a character class (square brackets) any character except ^
, -
, ]
or \
is a literal.
This website is a brilliant reference and has lots of info on the nuances of different regex flavours. http://www.regular-expressions.info/refcharclass.html