Regular expressions library

The regular expressions library provides a class that represents regular expressions, which are a kind of mini-language used to perform pattern matching within strings. Almost all operations with regexes can be characterized by operating on several of the following objects:

Target sequence. The character sequence that is searched for a pattern. This may be a range specified by two iterators, a null-terminated character string or a std::string.

Pattern. This is the regular expression itself. It determines what constitutes a match. It is an object of type std::basic_regex, constructed from a string with special syntax. See regex_constants::syntax_option_type for the description of supported syntax variations.

Matched array. The information about matches may be retrieved as an object of type std::match_results.

Replacement string. This is a string that determines how to replace the matches, see regex_constants::match_flag_type for the description of supported syntax variations.

Main classes

These classes encapsulate a regular expression and the results of matching a regular expression within a target sequence of characters.

basic_regex (C++11)	regular expression object (class template)
sub_match (C++11)	identifies the sequence of characters matched by a sub-expression (class template)
match_results (C++11)	identifies one regular expression match, including all sub-expression matches (class template)

Algorithms

These functions are used to apply the regular expression encapsulated in a regex to a target sequence of characters.

regex_match (C++11)	attempts to match a regular expression to an entire character sequence (function template)
regex_search (C++11)	attempts to match a regular expression to any part of a character sequence (function template)
regex_replace (C++11)	replaces occurrences of a regular expression with formatted replacement text (function template)

Iterators

The regex iterators are used to traverse the entire set of regular expression matches found within a sequence.

regex_iterator (C++11)	iterates through all regex matches within a character sequence (class template)
regex_token_iterator (C++11)	iterates through the specified sub-expressions within all regex matches in a given string or through unmatched substrings (class template)

Exceptions

This class defines the type of objects thrown as exceptions to report errors from the regular expressions library.

regex_error

(C++11)

reports errors generated by the regular expressions library
(class)

Traits

The regex traits class is used to encapsulate the localizable aspects of a regex.

regex_traits

(C++11)

provides metainformation about a character type, required by the regex library
(class template)

Constants

Defined in namespace `std::regex_constants`
syntax_option_type (C++11)	general options controlling regex behavior (typedef)
match_flag_type (C++11)	options specific to matching (typedef)
error_type (C++11)	describes different types of matching errors (typedef)

Example

Run this code

#include <iostream>
#include <iterator>
#include <string>
#include <regex>
 
int main()
{
    std::string s = "Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "
        "\"I know, I'll use regular expressions.\" "
        "Now they have two problems.";
 
    std::regex self_regex("REGULAR EXPRESSIONS",
            std::regex_constants::ECMAScript | std::regex_constants::icase);
    if (std::regex_search(s, self_regex)) {
        std::cout << "Text contains the phrase 'regular expressions'\n";
    }
 
    std::regex word_regex("(\\w+)");
    auto words_begin = 
        std::sregex_iterator(s.begin(), s.end(), word_regex);
    auto words_end = std::sregex_iterator();
 
    std::cout << "Found "
              << std::distance(words_begin, words_end)
              << " words\n";
 
    const int N = 6;
    std::cout << "Words longer than " << N << " characters:\n";
    for (std::sregex_iterator i = words_begin; i != words_end; ++i) {
        std::smatch match = *i;
        std::string match_str = match.str();
        if (match_str.size() > N) {
            std::cout << "  " << match_str << '\n';
        }
    }
 
    std::regex long_word_regex("(\\w{7,})");
    std::string new_s = std::regex_replace(s, long_word_regex, "[$&]");
    std::cout << new_s << '\n';
}

Output:

Text contains the phrase 'regular expressions'
Found 20 words
Words longer than 6 characters:
  confronted
  problem
  regular
  expressions
  problems
Some people, when [confronted] with a [problem], think 
"I know, I'll use [regular] [expressions]." Now they have two [problems].

Compiler support
Freestanding and hosted
Language
Standard library headers
Named requirements
Feature test macros (C++20)
Language support library
Concepts library (C++20)
Metaprogramming library (C++11)
Diagnostics library
General utilities library
Strings library
Containers library
Iterators library
Ranges library (C++20)
Algorithms library
Numerics library
Localizations library
Input/output library
Filesystem library (C++17)
Regular expressions library (C++11)
Concurrency support library (C++11)
Technical specifications
Symbols index
External libraries