regex(1F)                                                          FMLI Commands                                                         regex(1F)

NAME

       regex - match patterns against a string

SYNOPSIS

       regex [-e] [ -v "string"] [ pattern template] ... pattern [template]

DESCRIPTION

       The  regex  command  takes a string from the standard input, and a list of pattern / template pairs, and runs regex() to compare the string
       against each pattern until there is a match.  When a match occurs, regex writes the corresponding  template  to  the  standard  output  and
       returns  TRUE.  The  last  (or  only) pattern does not need a template. If that is the pattern that matches the string, the function simply
       returns TRUE. If no match is found, regex returns FALSE.

       The argument pattern is a regular expression of the form described in regex(). In most cases, pattern should be enclosed in  single  quotes
       to turn off special meanings of characters. Note that only the final pattern in the list may lack a template.

       The  argument template may contain the strings $m0 through $m9, which will be expanded to the part of pattern enclosed in ( ... )$0 through
       ( ...  )$9 constructs (see examples below). Note that if you use this feature, you must be sure to enclose template  in  single  quotes  so
       that  FMLI does not expand $m0 through $m9 at parse time. This feature gives regex much of the power of  cut(1), paste(1), and grep(1), and
       some of the capabilities of sed(1). If there is no template, the default is $m0$m1$m2$m3$m4$m5$m6$m7$m8$m9.

OPTIONS

       The following options are supported:

       -e              Evaluates the corresponding template and writes the result to the standard output.

       -v "string"     Uses string instead of the standard input to match against patterns.

EXAMPLES

       Example 1: Cutting letters out of a string

       To cut the 4th through 8th letters out of a string (this example will output strin and return TRUE):

       `regex -v "my string is nice" '^.{3}(.{5})$0' '$m0'`

       Example 2: Validating input in a form

       In a form, to validate input to field 5 as an integer:

       valid=`regex -v "$F5" '^[0-9]+$'`

       Example 3: Translating an environment variable in a form

       In a form, to translate an environment variable which contains one of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to the letters a, b, c, d, e:

       value=`regex -v "$VAR1" 1 a 2 b 3 c 4 d 5 e '.*' 'Error'`

       Note the use of the pattern '.*' to mean "anything else".

       Example 4: Using backquoted expressions

       In the example below, all three lines constitute a single backquoted expression. This expression, by itself, could be put in a menu defini-
       tion  file. Since backquoted expressions are expanded as they are parsed, and output from a backquoted expression (the cat command, in this
       example) becomes part of the definition file being parsed, this expression would read /etc/passwd and make a dynamic menu of all the  login
       ids on the system.

       `cat /etc/passwd | regex '^([^:]*)$0.*$' '
       name=$m0
       action=`message "$m0 is a user"`'`

DIAGNOSTICS

       If none of the patterns match, regex returns FALSE, otherwise TRUE.

NOTES

       Patterns  and  templates  must often be enclosed in single quotes to turn off the special meanings of characters. Especially if you use the
       $m0 through $m9 variables in the template, since FMLI will expand the variables (usually to "") before regex even sees them.

       Single characters in character classes (inside []) must be listed before character ranges, otherwise they will not be recognized. For exam-
       ple, [a-zA-Z_/] will not find underscores (_) or slashes (/), but [_/a-zA-Z] will.

       The regular expressions accepted by regcmp differ slightly from other utilities (that is, sed, grep, awk, ed, and so forth).

       regex with the -e option forces subsequent commands to be ignored. In other words, if a backquoted statement appears as follows:

              `regex -e ...; command1; command2`

       command1 and command2 would never be executed. However, dividing the expression into two:

              `regex -e ...``command1; command2`

       would yield the desired result.

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE         |      ATTRIBUTE VALUE        |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability                 |SUNWcsu                      |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO

       awk(1), cut(1), grep(1), paste(1), sed(1), regcmp(3C), attributes(5)

SunOS 5.10                                                          12 Jul 1999                                                          regex(1F)