Using regular expressions
You can use regular expressions in text-based restrictions to search for files. For example, you can use a regular expression in the filename restriction to locate files based on one or more file extensions.
Surround SCM supports Perl-style regular expressions. The following list includes regular expression characters commonly used to match text patterns.
| To match: | Use: | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Any single character | . | ab. matches ‘ab’ followed by any character, such as abc or ab_ |
| Zero or one occurrences of the previous character | ? | colou?r matches color or colour |
| Zero or more occurrences of the previous character | * | a.* matches ‘a’ followed by any number of characters, such as ab, abb, aab, or aabb |
| One or more occurrences of the previous character | + | ba+ matches ‘b’ followed by any number of occurrences or ‘a’, such as ba, baa, or baaa |
| A specified number of occurrences of the previous character | {...} | ba{3} matches baaa baa{3,} matches ‘b’ followed by three or more occurrences of ‘a’, such as baaa, baaaa, or baaaaa |
| Any single character included in a set of characters | [...] | [abc] matches a, b, or c |
| Any single character not included in a set of characters | [^...] | [^abc] matches any character except a, b, or c |
| Any single character in a specified range | [ - ] | [a-z] matches any lowercase character [0-9] matches any digit, 0-9 |
| Any single whitespace character (space, tab, new line) | \s | v\s matches ‘v’ followed by a whitespace character |
| Any single non-whitespace character | \S | v\s matches ‘v’, not followed by a whitespace character |
| Any single digit (same as [0-9]) | \d | v\d matches ‘v’ followed by a single digit, such as v1 |
| Any single non-digit (same as [^0-9]) | \D | v\D matches ‘v’ that are not followed by a digit, such as v_ |
The following symbols are also helpful for creating regular expressions.
| To: | Use: | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Separate two or more alternatives to perform an OR search | | | (gray|grey) matches gray or gray |
| Group several items as a single unit | (...) | (file1|2|3|4) matches file1, file2, file3, or file4 |
| Escape special characters for literal interpretation (modify the meaning of the following character) | \ | file\.txt matches occurrences of file.txt |
Examples
- You want to send an email notification when files with the .c or .h extension are checked in to a specific branch. Use the following regular expression in the filename restriction to indicate that the trigger applies to all files with a .c or .h extension: (.*\.c)|(.*\.h)
- You want to find all files that contain the string ‘log’ with a .doc or .xls extension. Use the following regular expression in the filename restriction: .*log.*\.(doc|xls)
- You want to find all files that start with the string ‘log’ and include a number. Use the following regular expression in the filename restriction: log.*\d.*
- You want to find all published web files with spaces to rename them and remove the spaces. Use the following regular expression in the filename restriction: .*\s.*
- You want to find all files with 129 or more characters and rename them. Use the following regular expression in the filename restriction: .{129,}