9.5 Quantifiers

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2 | Racket Essentials
3 | Built-In Datatypes
4 | Expressions and Definitions
5 | Programmer-Defined Datatypes
6 | Modules
7 | Contracts
8 | Input and Output
9 | Regular Expressions
10 | Exceptions and Control
11 | Iterations and Comprehensions
12 | Pattern Matching
13 | Classes and Objects
14 | Units (Components)
15 | Reflection and Dynamic Evaluation
16 | Macros
17 | Creating Languages
18 | Performance
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20 | Compilation and Configuration
21 | More Libraries
22 | Dialects of Racket and Scheme
| Bibliography
| Index

▼ | 9 | Regular Expressions

9.1 | Writing Regexp Patterns
9.2 | Matching Regexp Patterns
9.3 | Basic Assertions
9.4 | Characters and Character Classes
9.5 | Quantifiers
9.6 | Clusters
9.7 | Alternation
9.8 | Backtracking
9.9 | Looking Ahead and Behind
9.10 | An Extended Example

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#### 9.5`` Quantifiers

The quantifiers *, +, and ? match respectively: zero or more, one or more, and zero or one instances of the preceding subpattern.

> ( regexp-match-positions #rx"c[ad]*r" "cadaddadddr")
'((0 . 11))
> ( regexp-match-positions #rx"c[ad]*r" "cr")
'((0 . 2))
> ( regexp-match-positions #rx"c[ad]+r" "cadaddadddr")
'((0 . 11))
> ( regexp-match-positions #rx"c[ad]+r" "cr")
#f
> ( regexp-match-positions #rx"c[ad]?r" "cadaddadddr")
#f
> ( regexp-match-positions #rx"c[ad]?r" "cr")
'((0 . 2))
> ( regexp-match-positions #rx"c[ad]?r" "car")
'((0 . 3))

In #px syntax, you can use braces to specify much finer-tuned quantification than is possible with *, +, ?:

- The quantifier {m} matches exactly m instances of the preceding subpattern; m must be a nonnegative integer.

- The quantifier {m,n} matches at least m and at most n instances. m and n are nonnegative integers with m less or equal to n. You may omit either or both numbers, in which case m defaults to 0 and n to infinity.

It is evident that + and ? are abbreviations for {1,} and {0,1} respectively, and * abbreviates {,}, which is the same as {0,}.

> ( regexp-match #px"[aeiou]{3}" "vacuous")
'("uou")
> ( regexp-match #px"[aeiou]{3}" "evolve")
#f
> ( regexp-match #px"[aeiou]{2,3}" "evolve")
#f
> ( regexp-match #px"[aeiou]{2,3}" "zeugma")
'("eu")

The quantifiers described so far are all greedy: they match the maximal number of instances that would still lead to an overall match for the full pattern.

> ( regexp-match #rx"<.*>" "<tag1> <tag2> <tag3>")
'("<tag1> <tag2> <tag3>")

To make these quantifiers non-greedy, append a ? to them. Non-greedy quantifiers match the minimal number of instances needed to ensure an overall match.

> ( regexp-match #rx"<.*?>" "<tag1> <tag2> <tag3>")
'("<tag1>")

The non-greedy quantifiers are respectively: *?, +?, ??, {m}?, {m,n}?. Note the two uses of the metacharacter ?.

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