Perl-influenced Extensions in Oracle Regular Expressions

Oracle Database regular expression functions and conditions accept a number of Perl-influenced operators that are in common use, although not part of the POSIX standard. Table D-3 lists those operators. For more complete descriptions with examples, refer to Oracle Database Development Guide.

Table D-3 Perl-influenced Operators in Oracle Regular Expressions

Operator Description

\d

A digit character.

\D

A nondigit character.

\w

A word character.

\W

A nonword character.

\s

A whitespace character.

\S

A non-whitespace character.

\A

Matches only at the beginning of a string, or before a newline character at the end of a string.

\Z

Matches only at the end of a string.

*?

Matches the preceding pattern element 0 or more times (nongreedy).

+?

Matches the preceding pattern element 1 or more times (nongreedy).

??

Matches the preceding pattern element 0 or 1 time (nongreedy).

{n}?

Matches the preceding pattern element exactly n times (nongreedy).

{n,}?

Matches the preceding pattern element at least n times (nongreedy).

{n,m}?

Matches the preceding pattern element at least n but not more than m times (nongreedy).