The Backslash Character and Special Expressions (GNU Grep 3.7)
From Get docs
Grep/docs/latest/The-Backslash-Character-and-Special-Expressions
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3.3 The Backslash Character and Special Expressions
The ‘\
’ character followed by a special character is a regular expression that matches the special character. The ‘\
’ character, when followed by certain ordinary characters, takes a special meaning:
- ‘
\b
’ - Match the empty string at the edge of a word.
- ‘
\B
’ - Match the empty string provided it’s not at the edge of a word.
- ‘
\<
’ - Match the empty string at the beginning of a word.
- ‘
\>
’ - Match the empty string at the end of a word.
- ‘
\w
’ - Match word constituent, it is a synonym for ‘
[_[:alnum:]]
’. - ‘
\W
’ - Match non-word constituent, it is a synonym for ‘
[^_[:alnum:]]
’. - ‘
\s
’ - Match whitespace, it is a synonym for ‘
Grep/docs/latest/:space:
’. - ‘
\S
’ - Match non-whitespace, it is a synonym for ‘
[^[:space:]]
’.
For example, ‘\brat\b
’ matches the separate word ‘rat
’, ‘\Brat\B
’ matches ‘crate
’ but not ‘furry rat
’.