Regex syntax

This article is currently a stub; it means I'm aware it's short and I probably intend to expand on the subject in the future!

I can never remember which programs use which regex variants, so here's a quick recap sheet.


	grep (GNU)	sed (GNU)	vim	less (GNU)	python
capture	`\(` ... `\)`	`\(` ... `\)`	`\(` ... `\)`	`(` ... `)`	`(` ... `)`
option	`\\|`	`\\|`	`\\|`	`\|`	`\|`
word boundary	`\<` or `\>`	`\<` or `\>`	`\<` or `\>`	`\<` or `\>`	`\b`
zero or one	`\?`	`\?`	`\?`	`?`	`?`
zero or more	`*`	`*`	`*`	`*`	`*`
zero or more (non-greedy)			`\{-}`	(unknown)	`*?`
one or more	`\+`	`\+`	`\+`	`+`	`+`
one or more (non-greedy)			`\{-1,}`	(unknown)	`+?`

References