Regular expressions

Replace patterns

Any of these constructs may appear anywhere in the replace pattern, as long as regular expressions are turned on.

\\

Inserts a backslash.

\n

Inserts a newline sequence (CR, NL or CR/NL; depends on current document options).

\t

Inserts a horizontal tab character (TAB).

\f

Inserts a form feed character (FF).

\a

Inserts a vell character (BEL).

\v

Inserts a vertical tab (VT).

\e

Inserts an escape character (ESC).

\0

Inserts a null character (NUL).

\xhh

Inserts a character in hex notation.

\uhhhh

Inserts a character in unicode notation (unicode version only).

\cA

Inserts a character in control notation.

\Q ... \E

Quoted string. Anything between \Q and \E is treated as plain-text string.

\&

Back-reference to the entire match.

\1, \2, ..., \9

Back-reference to a specific captured group.

\+

Back-reference to the last successfull captured group. Consider having several alternations, each with a group inside it. Only one of the alternations will match, thus only one of those groups will be valid upon replacing. This back-reference allows referencing the correct one of those groups, based on which of the alternations matched.

• Note: This can also be achieved by using branch restart groups.