Regular Expressions
Use regular expressions to specify file identification patterns in TotalFlow Production Manager.
In regular expressions:
| Literal characters | Any character that does not have a special meaning matches itself. Literal characters
are case-sensitive. For example, A does not match a. |
| . | The dot matches any single character. For example, .at matches cat, rat, or bat. |
| ( ) | Parentheses identify a group of characters. For example, (ABC) matches ABC. |
| - | The hyphen defines a range of characters. For example, 0-9 matches any single digit. |
| * | The asterisk matches the preceding character zero or more times. For example, N* matches nothing (zero copies of N),N, NN, NNN, etc. .* matches any string of one or more characters. |
| + | The plus sign matches the preceding character one or more times. For example, N+ matches N, NN, NNN, etc. .+ matches any string of one or more characters. |
| { } | A number in curly brackets indicates the number of times to match the preceding character. For example, x{3} matches xxx. |
| ? | The question mark means that the preceding character is optional. For example, jpe?g matches jpeg or jpg. |
| [ ] | Square brackets enclose a character set. The character set matches any one of the characters in the
set. For example, [ABC] matches A, B, or C. |
| [^ ] | As the first character inside square brackets, the caret negates a character set. For example, [^ABC] matches any single character except A, B, or C. |
| | | The vertical bar separates alternatives. For example, A|a matches A or a. |
| ^ | At the beginning of a regular expression, the caret marks the beginning of the string. For example, ^A.*\.ps matches ABC.ps. |
| $ | At the end of a regular expression, the dollar sign marks the end of the string. For example, .*ps$ matches any file name with the extension ps. |
| \ | The backslash means that the next character is a literal character. For example, \(ABC\) matches (ABC). |
Examples
Any of these examples matches any file with a file extension of PDF, PDf, PdF, Pdf, pDF, pDf, pdF, or pdf:
.*PDF$)|(.*PDf$)|(.*PdF$)|(.*Pdf$)|(.*pDF$)|(.*pDf$)|(.*pdF$) (.*pdf$) .*(PDF|PDf|PdF|Pdf|pDF|pDf|pdF|pdf)$ .*[(PDF)(PDf)(PdF)(Pdf)(pDF)(pDf)(pdF)(pdf)]$ .*(P|p)(D|d)(F|f)$ .*(P|p)(D|d)(F|f) .*[Pp][Dd][Ff]$ .*[Pp][Dd][Ff]