module Str:sig
..end
Regular expressions and high-level string processing
type
regexp
The type of compiled regular expressions.
val regexp : string -> regexp
Compile a regular expression. The following constructs are recognized:
.
Matches any character except newline.*
(postfix) Matches the preceding expression zero, one or
several times+
(postfix) Matches the preceding expression one or
several times?
(postfix) Matches the preceding expression once or
not at all[..]
Character set. Ranges are denoted with -
, as in [a-z]
.
An initial ^
, as in [^0-9]
, complements the set.
To include a ]
character in a set, make it the first
character of the set. To include a -
character in a set,
make it the first or the last character of the set.^
Matches at beginning of line: either at the beginning of
the matched string, or just after a '\n' character.$
Matches at end of line: either at the end of the matched
string, or just before a '\n' character.\|
(infix) Alternative between two expressions.\(..\)
Grouping and naming of the enclosed expression.\1
The text matched by the first \(...\)
expression
(\2
for the second expression, and so on up to \9
).\b
Matches word boundaries.\
Quotes special characters. The special characters
are $^\.*+?[]
.Note: the argument to regexp
is usually a string literal. In this
case, any backslash character in the regular expression must be
doubled to make it past the OCaml string parser. For example, the
following expression:
let r = Str.regexp "hello \\([A-Za-z]+\\)" in
Str.replace_first r "\\1" "hello world"
returns the string "world"
.
In particular, if you want a regular expression that matches a single
backslash character, you need to quote it in the argument to regexp
(according to the last item of the list above) by adding a second
backslash. Then you need to quote both backslashes (according to the
syntax of string constants in OCaml) by doubling them again, so you
need to write four backslash characters: Str.regexp "\\\\"
.
val regexp_case_fold : string -> regexp
Same as regexp
, but the compiled expression will match text
in a case-insensitive way: uppercase and lowercase letters will
be considered equivalent.
val quote : string -> string
Str.quote s
returns a regexp string that matches exactly
s
and nothing else.
val regexp_string : string -> regexp
Str.regexp_string s
returns a regular expression
that matches exactly s
and nothing else.
val regexp_string_case_fold : string -> regexp
Str.regexp_string_case_fold
is similar to Str.regexp_string
,
but the regexp matches in a case-insensitive way.
val string_match : regexp -> string -> int -> bool
string_match r s start
tests whether a substring of s
that
starts at position start
matches the regular expression r
.
The first character of a string has position 0
, as usual.
val search_forward : regexp -> string -> int -> int
search_forward r s start
searches the string s
for a substring
matching the regular expression r
. The search starts at position
start
and proceeds towards the end of the string.
Return the position of the first character of the matched
substring.
Not_found
if no substring matches.val search_backward : regexp -> string -> int -> int
search_backward r s last
searches the string s
for a
substring matching the regular expression r
. The search first
considers substrings that start at position last
and proceeds
towards the beginning of string. Return the position of the first
character of the matched substring.
Not_found
if no substring matches.val string_partial_match : regexp -> string -> int -> bool
Similar to Str.string_match
, but also returns true if
the argument string is a prefix of a string that matches.
This includes the case of a true complete match.
val matched_string : string -> string
matched_string s
returns the substring of s
that was matched
by the last call to one of the following matching or searching
functions:
Str.string_match
Str.search_forward
Str.search_backward
Str.string_partial_match
Str.global_substitute
Str.substitute_first
provided that none of the following functions was called in between:
Str.global_replace
Str.replace_first
Str.split
Str.bounded_split
Str.split_delim
Str.bounded_split_delim
Str.full_split
Str.bounded_full_split
Note: in the case of global_substitute
and substitute_first
,
a call to matched_string
is only valid within the subst
argument,
not after global_substitute
or substitute_first
returns.
The user must make sure that the parameter s
is the same string
that was passed to the matching or searching function.
val match_beginning : unit -> int
match_beginning()
returns the position of the first character
of the substring that was matched by the last call to a matching
or searching function (see Str.matched_string
for details).
val match_end : unit -> int
match_end()
returns the position of the character following the
last character of the substring that was matched by the last call
to a matching or searching function (see Str.matched_string
for
details).
val matched_group : int -> string -> string
matched_group n s
returns the substring of s
that was matched
by the n
th group \(...\)
of the regular expression that was
matched by the last call to a matching or searching function (see
Str.matched_string
for details).
The user must make sure that the parameter s
is the same string
that was passed to the matching or searching function.
Not_found
if the n
th group
of the regular expression was not matched. This can happen
with groups inside alternatives \|
, options ?
or repetitions *
. For instance, the empty string will match
\(a\)*
, but matched_group 1 ""
will raise Not_found
because the first group itself was not matched.val group_beginning : int -> int
group_beginning n
returns the position of the first character
of the substring that was matched by the n
th group of
the regular expression that was matched by the last call to a
matching or searching function (see Str.matched_string
for details).
Not_found
if the n
th group of the regular expression
was not matched.Invalid_argument
if there are fewer than n
groups in
the regular expression.val group_end : int -> int
group_end n
returns
the position of the character following the last character of
substring that was matched by the n
th group of the regular
expression that was matched by the last call to a matching or
searching function (see Str.matched_string
for details).
Not_found
if the n
th group of the regular expression
was not matched.Invalid_argument
if there are fewer than n
groups in
the regular expression.val global_replace : regexp -> string -> string -> string
global_replace regexp templ s
returns a string identical to s
,
except that all substrings of s
that match regexp
have been
replaced by templ
. The replacement template templ
can contain
\1
, \2
, etc; these sequences will be replaced by the text
matched by the corresponding group in the regular expression.
\0
stands for the text matched by the whole regular expression.
val replace_first : regexp -> string -> string -> string
Same as Str.global_replace
, except that only the first substring
matching the regular expression is replaced.
val global_substitute : regexp -> (string -> string) -> string -> string
global_substitute regexp subst s
returns a string identical
to s
, except that all substrings of s
that match regexp
have been replaced by the result of function subst
. The
function subst
is called once for each matching substring,
and receives s
(the whole text) as argument.
val substitute_first : regexp -> (string -> string) -> string -> string
Same as Str.global_substitute
, except that only the first substring
matching the regular expression is replaced.
val replace_matched : string -> string -> string
replace_matched repl s
returns the replacement text repl
in which \1
, \2
, etc. have been replaced by the text
matched by the corresponding groups in the regular expression
that was matched by the last call to a matching or searching
function (see Str.matched_string
for details).
s
must be the same string that was passed to the matching or
searching function.
val split : regexp -> string -> string list
split r s
splits s
into substrings, taking as delimiters
the substrings that match r
, and returns the list of substrings.
For instance, split (regexp "[ \t]+") s
splits s
into
blank-separated words. An occurrence of the delimiter at the
beginning or at the end of the string is ignored.
val bounded_split : regexp -> string -> int -> string list
Same as Str.split
, but splits into at most n
substrings,
where n
is the extra integer parameter.
val split_delim : regexp -> string -> string list
Same as Str.split
but occurrences of the
delimiter at the beginning and at the end of the string are
recognized and returned as empty strings in the result.
For instance, split_delim (regexp " ") " abc "
returns [""; "abc"; ""]
, while split
with the same
arguments returns ["abc"]
.
val bounded_split_delim : regexp -> string -> int -> string list
Same as Str.bounded_split
, but occurrences of the
delimiter at the beginning and at the end of the string are
recognized and returned as empty strings in the result.
type
split_result =
| |
Text of |
| |
Delim of |
val full_split : regexp -> string -> split_result list
Same as Str.split_delim
, but returns
the delimiters as well as the substrings contained between
delimiters. The former are tagged Delim
in the result list;
the latter are tagged Text
. For instance,
full_split (regexp "[{}]") "{ab}"
returns
[Delim "{"; Text "ab"; Delim "}"]
.
val bounded_full_split : regexp -> string -> int -> split_result list
Same as Str.bounded_split_delim
, but returns
the delimiters as well as the substrings contained between
delimiters. The former are tagged Delim
in the result list;
the latter are tagged Text
.
val string_before : string -> int -> string
string_before s n
returns the substring of all characters of s
that precede position n
(excluding the character at
position n
).
val string_after : string -> int -> string
string_after s n
returns the substring of all characters of s
that follow position n
(including the character at
position n
).
val first_chars : string -> int -> string
first_chars s n
returns the first n
characters of s
.
This is the same function as Str.string_before
.
val last_chars : string -> int -> string
last_chars s n
returns the last n
characters of s
.