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+<title>TQRegExp Class</title>
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+ | <a href="classes.html">
+<font color="#004faf">All&nbsp;Classes</font></a>
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+<td align="right" valign="center"><img src="logo32.png" align="right" width="64" height="32" border="0"></td></tr></table><h1 align=center>TQRegExp Class Reference</h1>
+
+<p>The TQRegExp class provides pattern matching using regular expressions.
+<a href="#details">More...</a>
+<p>All the functions in this class are <a href="threads.html#reentrant">reentrant</a> when TQt is built with thread support.</p>
+<p><tt>#include &lt;<a href="qregexp-h.html">ntqregexp.h</a>&gt;</tt>
+<p><a href="qregexp-members.html">List of all member functions.</a>
+<h2>Public Members</h2>
+<ul>
+<li class=fn>enum <a href="#CaretMode-enum"><b>CaretMode</b></a> { CaretAtZero, CaretAtOffset, CaretWontMatch }</li>
+<li class=fn><a href="#TQRegExp"><b>TQRegExp</b></a> ()</li>
+<li class=fn><a href="#TQRegExp-2"><b>TQRegExp</b></a> ( const&nbsp;TQString&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;pattern, bool&nbsp;caseSensitive = TRUE, bool&nbsp;wildcard = FALSE )</li>
+<li class=fn><a href="#TQRegExp-3"><b>TQRegExp</b></a> ( const&nbsp;TQRegExp&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;rx )</li>
+<li class=fn><a href="#~TQRegExp"><b>~TQRegExp</b></a> ()</li>
+<li class=fn>TQRegExp &amp; <a href="#operator-eq"><b>operator=</b></a> ( const&nbsp;TQRegExp&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;rx )</li>
+<li class=fn>bool <a href="#operator-eq-eq"><b>operator==</b></a> ( const&nbsp;TQRegExp&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;rx ) const</li>
+<li class=fn>bool <a href="#operator!-eq"><b>operator!=</b></a> ( const&nbsp;TQRegExp&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;rx ) const</li>
+<li class=fn>bool <a href="#isEmpty"><b>isEmpty</b></a> () const</li>
+<li class=fn>bool <a href="#isValid"><b>isValid</b></a> () const</li>
+<li class=fn>TQString <a href="#pattern"><b>pattern</b></a> () const</li>
+<li class=fn>void <a href="#setPattern"><b>setPattern</b></a> ( const&nbsp;TQString&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;pattern )</li>
+<li class=fn>bool <a href="#caseSensitive"><b>caseSensitive</b></a> () const</li>
+<li class=fn>void <a href="#setCaseSensitive"><b>setCaseSensitive</b></a> ( bool&nbsp;sensitive )</li>
+<li class=fn>bool <a href="#wildcard"><b>wildcard</b></a> () const</li>
+<li class=fn>void <a href="#setWildcard"><b>setWildcard</b></a> ( bool&nbsp;wildcard )</li>
+<li class=fn>bool <a href="#minimal"><b>minimal</b></a> () const</li>
+<li class=fn>void <a href="#setMinimal"><b>setMinimal</b></a> ( bool&nbsp;minimal )</li>
+<li class=fn>bool <a href="#exactMatch"><b>exactMatch</b></a> ( const&nbsp;TQString&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;str ) const</li>
+<li class=fn>int match ( const&nbsp;TQString&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;str, int&nbsp;index = 0, int&nbsp;*&nbsp;len = 0, bool&nbsp;indexIsStart = TRUE ) const &nbsp;<em>(obsolete)</em></li>
+<li class=fn>int <a href="#search"><b>search</b></a> ( const&nbsp;TQString&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;str, int&nbsp;offset = 0, CaretMode&nbsp;caretMode = CaretAtZero ) const</li>
+<li class=fn>int <a href="#searchRev"><b>searchRev</b></a> ( const&nbsp;TQString&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;str, int&nbsp;offset = -1, CaretMode&nbsp;caretMode = CaretAtZero ) const</li>
+<li class=fn>int <a href="#matchedLength"><b>matchedLength</b></a> () const</li>
+<li class=fn>int <a href="#numCaptures"><b>numCaptures</b></a> () const</li>
+<li class=fn>TQStringList <a href="#capturedTexts"><b>capturedTexts</b></a> ()</li>
+<li class=fn>TQString <a href="#cap"><b>cap</b></a> ( int&nbsp;nth = 0 )</li>
+<li class=fn>int <a href="#pos"><b>pos</b></a> ( int&nbsp;nth = 0 )</li>
+<li class=fn>TQString <a href="#errorString"><b>errorString</b></a> ()</li>
+</ul>
+<h2>Static Public Members</h2>
+<ul>
+<li class=fn>TQString <a href="#escape"><b>escape</b></a> ( const&nbsp;TQString&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;str )</li>
+</ul>
+<hr><a name="details"></a><h2>Detailed Description</h2>
+
+
+
+The TQRegExp class provides pattern matching using regular expressions.
+<p>
+
+
+
+<!-- index regular expression --><a name="regular-expression"></a>
+<p> Regular expressions, or "regexps", provide a way to find patterns
+within text. This is useful in many contexts, for example:
+<p> <center><table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="2" border="0">
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top">Validation
+<td valign="top">A regexp can be used to check whether a piece of text
+meets some criteria, e.g. is an integer or contains no
+whitespace.
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top">Searching
+<td valign="top">Regexps provide a much more powerful means of searching
+text than simple string matching does. For example we can
+create a regexp which says "find one of the words 'mail',
+'letter' or 'correspondence' but not any of the words
+'email', 'mailman' 'mailer', 'letterbox' etc."
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top">Search and Replace
+<td valign="top">A regexp can be used to replace a pattern with a piece of
+text, for example replace all occurrences of '&' with
+'&amp;amp;' except where the '&' is already followed by 'amp;'.
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top">String Splitting
+<td valign="top">A regexp can be used to identify where a string should be
+split into its component fields, e.g. splitting tab-delimited
+strings.
+</table></center>
+<p> We present a very brief introduction to regexps, a description of
+TQt's regexp language, some code examples, and finally the function
+documentation itself. TQRegExp is modeled on Perl's regexp
+language, and also fully supports Unicode. TQRegExp can also be
+used in the weaker 'wildcard' (globbing) mode which works in a
+similar way to command shells. A good text on regexps is <em>Mastering Regular Expressions: Powerful Techniques for Perl and Other Tools</em> by Jeffrey E. Friedl, ISBN 1565922573.
+<p> Experienced regexp users may prefer to skip the introduction and
+go directly to the relevant information.
+<p> In case of multi-threaded programming, note that TQRegExp depends on
+<a href="ntqthreadstorage.html">TQThreadStorage</a> internally. For that reason, TQRegExp should only be
+used with threads started with <a href="ntqthread.html">TQThread</a>, i.e. not with threads
+started with platform-specific APIs.
+<p> <!-- toc -->
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#1"> Introduction
+</a>
+<li><a href="#1-1"> Characters and Abbreviations for Sets of Characters
+</a>
+<li><a href="#1-2"> Sets of Characters
+</a>
+<li><a href="#1-3"> Quantifiers
+</a>
+<li><a href="#1-4"> Capturing Text
+</a>
+<li><a href="#1-5"> Assertions
+</a>
+<li><a href="#1-6"> Wildcard Matching (globbing)
+</a>
+<li><a href="#1-7"> Notes for Perl Users
+</a>
+<li><a href="#1-8"> Code Examples
+</a>
+</ul>
+<!-- endtoc -->
+
+<p> <h3> Introduction
+</h3>
+<a name="1"></a><p> Regexps are built up from expressions, quantifiers, and assertions.
+The simplest form of expression is simply a character, e.g.
+<b>x</b> or <b>5</b>. An expression can also be a set of
+characters. For example, <b>[ABCD]</b>, will match an <b>A</b> or
+a <b>B</b> or a <b>C</b> or a <b>D</b>. As a shorthand we could
+write this as <b>[A-D]</b>. If we want to match any of the
+captital letters in the English alphabet we can write
+<b>[A-Z]</b>. A quantifier tells the regexp engine how many
+occurrences of the expression we want, e.g. <b>x{1,1}</b> means
+match an <b>x</b> which occurs at least once and at most once.
+We'll look at assertions and more complex expressions later.
+<p> Note that in general regexps cannot be used to check for balanced
+brackets or tags. For example if you want to match an opening html
+<tt>&lt;b&gt;</tt> and its closing <tt>&lt;/b&gt;</tt> you can only use a regexp if you
+know that these tags are not nested; the html fragment, <tt>&lt;b&gt;bold &lt;b&gt;bolder&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;</tt> will not match as expected. If you know the
+maximum level of nesting it is possible to create a regexp that
+will match correctly, but for an unknown level of nesting, regexps
+will fail.
+<p> We'll start by writing a regexp to match integers in the range 0
+to 99. We will require at least one digit so we will start with
+<b>[0-9]{1,1}</b> which means match a digit exactly once. This
+regexp alone will match integers in the range 0 to 9. To match one
+or two digits we can increase the maximum number of occurrences so
+the regexp becomes <b>[0-9]{1,2}</b> meaning match a digit at
+least once and at most twice. However, this regexp as it stands
+will not match correctly. This regexp will match one or two digits
+<em>within</em> a string. To ensure that we match against the whole
+string we must use the anchor assertions. We need <b>^</b> (caret)
+which when it is the first character in the regexp means that the
+regexp must match from the beginning of the string. And we also
+need <b>$</b> (dollar) which when it is the last character in the
+regexp means that the regexp must match until the end of the
+string. So now our regexp is <b>^[0-9]{1,2}$</b>. Note that
+assertions, such as <b>^</b> and <b>$</b>, do not match any
+characters.
+<p> If you've seen regexps elsewhere they may have looked different from
+the ones above. This is because some sets of characters and some
+quantifiers are so common that they have special symbols to
+represent them. <b>[0-9]</b> can be replaced with the symbol
+<b>\d</b>. The quantifier to match exactly one occurrence,
+<b>{1,1}</b>, can be replaced with the expression itself. This means
+that <b>x{1,1}</b> is exactly the same as <b>x</b> alone. So our 0
+to 99 matcher could be written <b>^\d{1,2}$</b>. Another way of
+writing it would be <b>^\d\d{0,1}$</b>, i.e. from the start of the
+string match a digit followed by zero or one digits. In practice
+most people would write it <b>^\d\d?$</b>. The <b>?</b> is a
+shorthand for the quantifier <b>{0,1}</b>, i.e. a minimum of no
+occurrences a maximum of one occurrence. This is used to make an
+expression optional. The regexp <b>^\d\d?$</b> means "from the
+beginning of the string match one digit followed by zero or one
+digits and then the end of the string".
+<p> Our second example is matching the words 'mail', 'letter' or
+'correspondence' but without matching 'email', 'mailman',
+'mailer', 'letterbox' etc. We'll start by just matching 'mail'. In
+full the regexp is, <b>m{1,1}a{1,1}i{1,1}l{1,1}</b>, but since
+each expression itself is automatically quantified by <b>{1,1}</b>
+we can simply write this as <b>mail</b>; an 'm' followed by an 'a'
+followed by an 'i' followed by an 'l'. The symbol '|' (bar) is
+used for <em>alternation</em>, so our regexp now becomes
+<b>mail|letter|correspondence</b> which means match 'mail' <em>or</em>
+'letter' <em>or</em> 'correspondence'. Whilst this regexp will find the
+words we want it will also find words we don't want such as
+'email'. We will start by putting our regexp in parentheses,
+<b>(mail|letter|correspondence)</b>. Parentheses have two effects,
+firstly they group expressions together and secondly they identify
+parts of the regexp that we wish to <a href="#capturing-text">capture</a>. Our regexp still matches any of the three words but now
+they are grouped together as a unit. This is useful for building
+up more complex regexps. It is also useful because it allows us to
+examine which of the words actually matched. We need to use
+another assertion, this time <b>\b</b> "word boundary":
+<b>\b(mail|letter|correspondence)\b</b>. This regexp means "match
+a word boundary followed by the expression in parentheses followed
+by another word boundary". The <b>\b</b> assertion matches at a <em>position</em> in the regexp not a <em>character</em> in the regexp. A word
+boundary is any non-word character such as a space a newline or
+the beginning or end of the string.
+<p> For our third example we want to replace ampersands with the HTML
+entity '&amp;amp;'. The regexp to match is simple: <b>&amp;</b>, i.e.
+match one ampersand. Unfortunately this will mess up our text if
+some of the ampersands have already been turned into HTML
+entities. So what we really want to say is replace an ampersand
+providing it is not followed by 'amp;'. For this we need the
+negative lookahead assertion and our regexp becomes:
+<b>&amp;(?!amp;)</b>. The negative lookahead assertion is introduced
+with '(?!' and finishes at the ')'. It means that the text it
+contains, 'amp;' in our example, must <em>not</em> follow the expression
+that preceeds it.
+<p> Regexps provide a rich language that can be used in a variety of
+ways. For example suppose we want to count all the occurrences of
+'Eric' and 'Eirik' in a string. Two valid regexps to match these
+are <b>&#92;b(Eric|Eirik)&#92;b</b> and <b>&#92;bEi?ri[ck]&#92;b</b>. We need
+the word boundary '\b' so we don't get 'Ericsson' etc. The second
+regexp actually matches more than we want, 'Eric', 'Erik', 'Eiric'
+and 'Eirik'.
+<p> We will implement some the examples above in the
+<a href="#code-examples">code examples</a> section.
+<p> <a name="characters-and-abbreviations-for-sets-of-characters"></a>
+<h3> Characters and Abbreviations for Sets of Characters
+</h3>
+<a name="1-1"></a><p> <center><table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="2" border="0">
+<tr bgcolor="#a2c511"> <th valign="top">Element <th valign="top">Meaning
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top"><b>c</b>
+<td valign="top">Any character represents itself unless it has a special
+regexp meaning. Thus <b>c</b> matches the character <em>c</em>.
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top"><b>&#92;c</b>
+<td valign="top">A character that follows a backslash matches the character
+itself except where mentioned below. For example if you
+wished to match a literal caret at the beginning of a string
+you would write <b>&#92;^</b>.
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top"><b>&#92;a</b>
+<td valign="top">This matches the ASCII bell character (BEL, 0x07).
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top"><b>&#92;f</b>
+<td valign="top">This matches the ASCII form feed character (FF, 0x0C).
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top"><b>&#92;n</b>
+<td valign="top">This matches the ASCII line feed character (LF, 0x0A, Unix newline).
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top"><b>&#92;r</b>
+<td valign="top">This matches the ASCII carriage return character (CR, 0x0D).
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top"><b>&#92;t</b>
+<td valign="top">This matches the ASCII horizontal tab character (HT, 0x09).
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top"><b>&#92;v</b>
+<td valign="top">This matches the ASCII vertical tab character (VT, 0x0B).
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top"><b>&#92;xhhhh</b>
+<td valign="top">This matches the Unicode character corresponding to the
+hexadecimal number hhhh (between 0x0000 and 0xFFFF). &#92;0ooo
+(i.e., \zero ooo) matches the ASCII/Latin-1 character
+corresponding to the octal number ooo (between 0 and 0377).
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top"><b>. (dot)</b>
+<td valign="top">This matches any character (including newline).
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top"><b>&#92;d</b>
+<td valign="top">This matches a digit (<a href="qchar.html#isDigit">TQChar::isDigit</a>()).
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top"><b>&#92;D</b>
+<td valign="top">This matches a non-digit.
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top"><b>&#92;s</b>
+<td valign="top">This matches a whitespace (<a href="qchar.html#isSpace">TQChar::isSpace</a>()).
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top"><b>&#92;S</b>
+<td valign="top">This matches a non-whitespace.
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top"><b>&#92;w</b>
+<td valign="top">This matches a word character (<a href="qchar.html#isLetterOrNumber">TQChar::isLetterOrNumber</a>() or '_').
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top"><b>&#92;W</b>
+<td valign="top">This matches a non-word character.
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top"><b>&#92;n</b>
+<td valign="top">The n-th <a href="#capturing-text">backreference</a>,
+e.g. &#92;1, &#92;2, etc.
+</table></center>
+<p> <em>Note that the C++ compiler transforms backslashes in strings so to include a <b>&#92;</b> in a regexp you will need to enter it twice, i.e. <b>&#92;&#92;</b>.</em>
+<p> <a name="sets-of-characters"></a>
+<h3> Sets of Characters
+</h3>
+<a name="1-2"></a><p> Square brackets are used to match any character in the set of
+characters contained within the square brackets. All the character
+set abbreviations described above can be used within square
+brackets. Apart from the character set abbreviations and the
+following two exceptions no characters have special meanings in
+square brackets.
+<p> <center><table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="2" border="0">
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top"><b>^</b>
+<td valign="top">The caret negates the character set if it occurs as the
+first character, i.e. immediately after the opening square
+bracket. For example, <b>[abc]</b> matches 'a' or 'b' or 'c',
+but <b>[^abc]</b> matches anything <em>except</em> 'a' or 'b' or
+'c'.
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top"><b>-</b>
+<td valign="top">The dash is used to indicate a range of characters, for
+example <b>[W-Z]</b> matches 'W' or 'X' or 'Y' or 'Z'.
+</table></center>
+<p> Using the predefined character set abbreviations is more portable
+than using character ranges across platforms and languages. For
+example, <b>[0-9]</b> matches a digit in Western alphabets but
+<b>\d</b> matches a digit in <em>any</em> alphabet.
+<p> Note that in most regexp literature sets of characters are called
+"character classes".
+<p> <a name="quantifiers"></a>
+<h3> Quantifiers
+</h3>
+<a name="1-3"></a><p> By default an expression is automatically quantified by
+<b>{1,1}</b>, i.e. it should occur exactly once. In the following
+list <b><em>E</em></b> stands for any expression. An expression is a
+character or an abbreviation for a set of characters or a set of
+characters in square brackets or any parenthesised expression.
+<p> <center><table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="2" border="0">
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top"><b><em>E</em>?</b>
+<td valign="top">Matches zero or one occurrence of <em>E</em>. This quantifier
+means "the previous expression is optional" since it will
+match whether or not the expression occurs in the string. It
+is the same as <b><em>E</em>{0,1}</b>. For example <b>dents?</b>
+will match 'dent' and 'dents'.
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top"><b><em>E</em>+</b>
+<td valign="top">Matches one or more occurrences of <em>E</em>. This is the same
+as <b><em>E</em>{1,MAXINT}</b>. For example, <b>0+</b> will match
+'0', '00', '000', etc.
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top"><b><em>E</em>*</b>
+<td valign="top">Matches zero or more occurrences of <em>E</em>. This is the same
+as <b><em>E</em>{0,MAXINT}</b>. The <b>*</b> quantifier is often
+used by a mistake. Since it matches <em>zero</em> or more
+occurrences it will match no occurrences at all. For example
+if we want to match strings that end in whitespace and use
+the regexp <b>\s*$</b> we would get a match on every string.
+This is because we have said find zero or more whitespace
+followed by the end of string, so even strings that don't end
+in whitespace will match. The regexp we want in this case is
+<b>\s+$</b> to match strings that have at least one
+whitespace at the end.
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top"><b><em>E</em>{n}</b>
+<td valign="top">Matches exactly <em>n</em> occurrences of the expression. This
+is the same as repeating the expression <em>n</em> times. For
+example, <b>x{5}</b> is the same as <b>xxxxx</b>. It is also
+the same as <b><em>E</em>{n,n}</b>, e.g. <b>x{5,5}</b>.
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top"><b><em>E</em>{n,}</b>
+<td valign="top">Matches at least <em>n</em> occurrences of the expression. This
+is the same as <b><em>E</em>{n,MAXINT}</b>.
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top"><b><em>E</em>{,m}</b>
+<td valign="top">Matches at most <em>m</em> occurrences of the expression. This
+is the same as <b><em>E</em>{0,m}</b>.
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top"><b><em>E</em>{n,m}</b>
+<td valign="top">Matches at least <em>n</em> occurrences of the expression and at
+most <em>m</em> occurrences of the expression.
+</table></center>
+<p> (MAXINT is implementation dependent but will not be smaller than
+1024.)
+<p> If we wish to apply a quantifier to more than just the preceding
+character we can use parentheses to group characters together in
+an expression. For example, <b>tag+</b> matches a 't' followed by
+an 'a' followed by at least one 'g', whereas <b>(tag)+</b> matches
+at least one occurrence of 'tag'.
+<p> Note that quantifiers are "greedy". They will match as much text
+as they can. For example, <b>0+</b> will match as many zeros as it
+can from the first zero it finds, e.g. '2.<u>000</u>5'.
+Quantifiers can be made non-greedy, see <a href="#setMinimal">setMinimal</a>().
+<p> <a name="capturing-text"></a>
+<h3> Capturing Text
+</h3>
+<a name="1-4"></a><p> Parentheses allow us to group elements together so that we can
+quantify and capture them. For example if we have the expression
+<b>mail|letter|correspondence</b> that matches a string we know
+that <em>one</em> of the words matched but not which one. Using
+parentheses allows us to "capture" whatever is matched within
+their bounds, so if we used <b>(mail|letter|correspondence)</b>
+and matched this regexp against the string "I sent you some email"
+we can use the <a href="#cap">cap</a>() or <a href="#capturedTexts">capturedTexts</a>() functions to extract the
+matched characters, in this case 'mail'.
+<p> We can use captured text within the regexp itself. To refer to the
+captured text we use <em>backreferences</em> which are indexed from 1,
+the same as for cap(). For example we could search for duplicate
+words in a string using <b>\b(\w+)\W+&#92;1\b</b> which means match a
+word boundary followed by one or more word characters followed by
+one or more non-word characters followed by the same text as the
+first parenthesised expression followed by a word boundary.
+<p> If we want to use parentheses purely for grouping and not for
+capturing we can use the non-capturing syntax, e.g.
+<b>(?:green|blue)</b>. Non-capturing parentheses begin '(?:' and
+end ')'. In this example we match either 'green' or 'blue' but we
+do not capture the match so we only know whether or not we matched
+but not which color we actually found. Using non-capturing
+parentheses is more efficient than using capturing parentheses
+since the regexp engine has to do less book-keeping.
+<p> Both capturing and non-capturing parentheses may be nested.
+<p> <a name="assertions"></a>
+<h3> Assertions
+</h3>
+<a name="1-5"></a><p> Assertions make some statement about the text at the point where
+they occur in the regexp but they do not match any characters. In
+the following list <b><em>E</em></b> stands for any expression.
+<p> <center><table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="2" border="0">
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top"><b>^</b>
+<td valign="top">The caret signifies the beginning of the string. If you
+wish to match a literal <tt>^</tt> you must escape it by
+writing <b>&#92;^</b>. For example, <b>^#include</b> will only
+match strings which <em>begin</em> with the characters '#include'.
+(When the caret is the first character of a character set it
+has a special meaning, see <a href="#sets-of-characters">Sets of
+ Characters</a>.)
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top"><b>$</b>
+<td valign="top">The dollar signifies the end of the string. For example
+<b>\d\s*$</b> will match strings which end with a digit
+optionally followed by whitespace. If you wish to match a
+literal <tt>$</tt> you must escape it by writing
+<b>&#92;$</b>.
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top"><b>&#92;b</b>
+<td valign="top">A word boundary. For example the regexp
+<b>&#92;bOK&#92;b</b> means match immediately after a word
+boundary (e.g. start of string or whitespace) the letter 'O'
+then the letter 'K' immediately before another word boundary
+(e.g. end of string or whitespace). But note that the
+assertion does not actually match any whitespace so if we
+write <b>(&#92;bOK&#92;b)</b> and we have a match it will only
+contain 'OK' even if the string is "Its <u>OK</u> now".
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top"><b>&#92;B</b>
+<td valign="top">A non-word boundary. This assertion is true wherever
+<b>&#92;b</b> is false. For example if we searched for
+<b>&#92;Bon&#92;B</b> in "Left on" the match would fail (space
+and end of string aren't non-word boundaries), but it would
+match in "t<u>on</u>ne".
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top"><b>(?=<em>E</em>)</b>
+<td valign="top">Positive lookahead. This assertion is true if the
+expression matches at this point in the regexp. For example,
+<b>const(?=&#92;s+char)</b> matches 'const' whenever it is
+followed by 'char', as in 'static <u>const</u> char *'.
+(Compare with <b>const&#92;s+char</b>, which matches 'static
+<u>const char</u> *'.)
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top"><b>(?!<em>E</em>)</b>
+<td valign="top">Negative lookahead. This assertion is true if the
+expression does not match at this point in the regexp. For
+example, <b>const(?!&#92;s+char)</b> matches 'const' <em>except</em>
+when it is followed by 'char'.
+</table></center>
+<p> <a name="wildcard-matching"></a>
+<h3> Wildcard Matching (globbing)
+</h3>
+<a name="1-6"></a><p> Most command shells such as <em>bash</em> or <em>cmd.exe</em> support "file
+globbing", the ability to identify a group of files by using
+wildcards. The <a href="#setWildcard">setWildcard</a>() function is used to switch between
+regexp and wildcard mode. Wildcard matching is much simpler than
+full regexps and has only four features:
+<p> <center><table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="2" border="0">
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top"><b>c</b>
+<td valign="top">Any character represents itself apart from those mentioned
+below. Thus <b>c</b> matches the character <em>c</em>.
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top"><b>?</b>
+<td valign="top">This matches any single character. It is the same as
+<b>.</b> in full regexps.
+<tr bgcolor="#f0f0f0"> <td valign="top"><b>*</b>
+<td valign="top">This matches zero or more of any characters. It is the
+same as <b>.*</b> in full regexps.
+<tr bgcolor="#d0d0d0"> <td valign="top"><b>[...]</b>
+<td valign="top">Sets of characters can be represented in square brackets,
+similar to full regexps. Within the character class, like
+outside, backslash has no special meaning.
+</table></center>
+<p> For example if we are in wildcard mode and have strings which
+contain filenames we could identify HTML files with <b>*.html</b>.
+This will match zero or more characters followed by a dot followed
+by 'h', 't', 'm' and 'l'.
+<p> <a name="perl-users"></a>
+<h3> Notes for Perl Users
+</h3>
+<a name="1-7"></a><p> Most of the character class abbreviations supported by Perl are
+supported by TQRegExp, see <a href="#characters-and-abbreviations-for-sets-of-characters">characters
+ and abbreviations for sets of characters</a>.
+<p> In TQRegExp, apart from within character classes, <tt>^</tt> always
+signifies the start of the string, so carets must always be
+escaped unless used for that purpose. In Perl the meaning of caret
+varies automagically depending on where it occurs so escaping it
+is rarely necessary. The same applies to <tt>$</tt> which in
+TQRegExp always signifies the end of the string.
+<p> TQRegExp's quantifiers are the same as Perl's greedy quantifiers.
+Non-greedy matching cannot be applied to individual quantifiers,
+but can be applied to all the quantifiers in the pattern. For
+example, to match the Perl regexp <b>ro+?m</b> requires:
+<pre>
+ TQRegExp rx( "ro+m" );
+ rx.<a href="#setMinimal">setMinimal</a>( TRUE );
+ </pre>
+
+<p> The equivalent of Perl's <tt>/i</tt> option is
+<a href="#setCaseSensitive">setCaseSensitive</a>(FALSE).
+<p> Perl's <tt>/g</tt> option can be emulated using a <a href="#cap_in_a_loop">loop</a>.
+<p> In TQRegExp <b>.</b> matches any character, therefore all TQRegExp
+regexps have the equivalent of Perl's <tt>/s</tt> option. TQRegExp
+does not have an equivalent to Perl's <tt>/m</tt> option, but this
+can be emulated in various ways for example by splitting the input
+into lines or by looping with a regexp that searches for newlines.
+<p> Because TQRegExp is string oriented there are no \A, \Z or \z
+assertions. The \G assertion is not supported but can be emulated
+in a loop.
+<p> Perl's $& is <a href="#cap">cap</a>(0) or <a href="#capturedTexts">capturedTexts</a>()[0]. There are no TQRegExp
+equivalents for $`, $' or $+. Perl's capturing variables, $1, $2,
+... correspond to cap(1) or capturedTexts()[1], cap(2) or
+capturedTexts()[2], etc.
+<p> To substitute a pattern use <a href="ntqstring.html#replace">TQString::replace</a>().
+<p> Perl's extended <tt>/x</tt> syntax is not supported, nor are
+directives, e.g. (?i), or regexp comments, e.g. (?#comment). On
+the other hand, C++'s rules for literal strings can be used to
+achieve the same:
+<pre>
+ TQRegExp mark( "\\b" // word boundary
+ "[Mm]ark" // the word we want to match
+ );
+ </pre>
+
+<p> Both zero-width positive and zero-width negative lookahead
+assertions (?=pattern) and (?!pattern) are supported with the same
+syntax as Perl. Perl's lookbehind assertions, "independent"
+subexpressions and conditional expressions are not supported.
+<p> Non-capturing parentheses are also supported, with the same
+(?:pattern) syntax.
+<p> See <a href="ntqstringlist.html#split">TQStringList::split</a>() and <a href="ntqstringlist.html#join">TQStringList::join</a>() for equivalents
+to Perl's split and join functions.
+<p> Note: because C++ transforms &#92;'s they must be written <em>twice</em> in
+code, e.g. <b>&#92;b</b> must be written <b>&#92;&#92;b</b>.
+<p> <a name="code-examples"></a>
+<h3> Code Examples
+</h3>
+<a name="1-8"></a><p> <pre>
+ TQRegExp rx( "^\\d\\d?$" ); // match integers 0 to 99
+ rx.<a href="#search">search</a>( "123" ); // returns -1 (no match)
+ rx.<a href="#search">search</a>( "-6" ); // returns -1 (no match)
+ rx.<a href="#search">search</a>( "6" ); // returns 0 (matched as position 0)
+ </pre>
+
+<p> The third string matches '<u>6</u>'. This is a simple validation
+regexp for integers in the range 0 to 99.
+<p> <pre>
+ TQRegExp rx( "^\\S+$" ); // match strings without whitespace
+ rx.<a href="#search">search</a>( "Hello world" ); // returns -1 (no match)
+ rx.<a href="#search">search</a>( "This_is-OK" ); // returns 0 (matched at position 0)
+ </pre>
+
+<p> The second string matches '<u>This_is-OK</u>'. We've used the
+character set abbreviation '\S' (non-whitespace) and the anchors
+to match strings which contain no whitespace.
+<p> In the following example we match strings containing 'mail' or
+'letter' or 'correspondence' but only match whole words i.e. not
+'email'
+<p> <pre>
+ TQRegExp rx( "\\b(mail|letter|correspondence)\\b" );
+ rx.<a href="#search">search</a>( "I sent you an email" ); // returns -1 (no match)
+ rx.<a href="#search">search</a>( "Please write the letter" ); // returns 17
+ </pre>
+
+<p> The second string matches "Please write the <u>letter</u>". The
+word 'letter' is also captured (because of the parentheses). We
+can see what text we've captured like this:
+<p> <pre>
+ <a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a> captured = rx.cap( 1 ); // captured == "letter"
+ </pre>
+
+<p> This will capture the text from the first set of capturing
+parentheses (counting capturing left parentheses from left to
+right). The parentheses are counted from 1 since <a href="#cap">cap</a>( 0 ) is the
+whole matched regexp (equivalent to '&' in most regexp engines).
+<p> <pre>
+ TQRegExp rx( "&amp;(?!amp;)" ); // match ampersands but not &amp;amp;
+ <a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a> line1 = "This &amp; that";
+ line1.<a href="ntqstring.html#replace">replace</a>( rx, "&amp;amp;" );
+ // line1 == "This &amp;amp; that"
+ <a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a> line2 = "His &amp;amp; hers &amp; theirs";
+ line2.<a href="ntqstring.html#replace">replace</a>( rx, "&amp;amp;" );
+ // line2 == "His &amp;amp; hers &amp;amp; theirs"
+ </pre>
+
+<p> Here we've passed the TQRegExp to <a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a>'s replace() function to
+replace the matched text with new text.
+<p> <pre>
+ <a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a> str = "One Eric another Eirik, and an Ericsson."
+ " How many Eiriks, Eric?";
+ TQRegExp rx( "\\b(Eric|Eirik)\\b" ); // match Eric or Eirik
+ int pos = 0; // where we are in the string
+ int count = 0; // how many Eric and Eirik's we've counted
+ while ( pos &gt;= 0 ) {
+ pos = rx.<a href="#search">search</a>( str, pos );
+ if ( pos &gt;= 0 ) {
+ pos++; // move along in str
+ count++; // count our Eric or Eirik
+ }
+ }
+ </pre>
+
+<p> We've used the <a href="#search">search</a>() function to repeatedly match the regexp in
+the string. Note that instead of moving forward by one character
+at a time <tt>pos++</tt> we could have written <tt>pos += rx.matchedLength()</tt> to skip over the already matched string. The
+count will equal 3, matching 'One <u>Eric</u> another
+<u>Eirik</u>, and an Ericsson. How many Eiriks, <u>Eric</u>?'; it
+doesn't match 'Ericsson' or 'Eiriks' because they are not bounded
+by non-word boundaries.
+<p> One common use of regexps is to split lines of delimited data into
+their component fields.
+<p> <pre>
+ str = "Trolltech AS\twww.trolltech.com\tNorway";
+ <a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a> company, web, country;
+ rx.setPattern( "^([^\t]+)\t([^\t]+)\t([^\t]+)$" );
+ if ( rx.search( str ) != -1 ) {
+ company = rx.cap( 1 );
+ web = rx.cap( 2 );
+ country = rx.cap( 3 );
+ }
+ </pre>
+
+<p> In this example our input lines have the format company name, web
+address and country. Unfortunately the regexp is rather long and
+not very versatile -- the code will break if we add any more
+fields. A simpler and better solution is to look for the
+separator, '\t' in this case, and take the surrounding text. The
+<a href="ntqstringlist.html">TQStringList</a> split() function can take a separator string or regexp
+as an argument and split a string accordingly.
+<p> <pre>
+ <a href="ntqstringlist.html">TQStringList</a> field = TQStringList::<a href="ntqstringlist.html#split">split</a>( "\t", str );
+ </pre>
+
+<p> Here field[0] is the company, field[1] the web address and so on.
+<p> To imitate the matching of a shell we can use wildcard mode.
+<p> <pre>
+ TQRegExp rx( "*.html" ); // invalid regexp: * doesn't quantify anything
+ rx.<a href="#setWildcard">setWildcard</a>( TRUE ); // now it's a valid wildcard regexp
+ rx.<a href="#exactMatch">exactMatch</a>( "index.html" ); // returns TRUE
+ rx.<a href="#exactMatch">exactMatch</a>( "default.htm" ); // returns FALSE
+ rx.<a href="#exactMatch">exactMatch</a>( "readme.txt" ); // returns FALSE
+ </pre>
+
+<p> Wildcard matching can be convenient because of its simplicity, but
+any wildcard regexp can be defined using full regexps, e.g.
+<b>.*&#92;.html$</b>. Notice that we can't match both <tt>.html</tt> and <tt>.htm</tt> files with a wildcard unless we use <b>*.htm*</b> which will
+also match 'test.html.bak'. A full regexp gives us the precision
+we need, <b>.*&#92;.html?$</b>.
+<p> TQRegExp can match case insensitively using <a href="#setCaseSensitive">setCaseSensitive</a>(), and
+can use non-greedy matching, see <a href="#setMinimal">setMinimal</a>(). By default TQRegExp
+uses full regexps but this can be changed with <a href="#setWildcard">setWildcard</a>().
+Searching can be forward with <a href="#search">search</a>() or backward with
+<a href="#searchRev">searchRev</a>(). Captured text can be accessed using <a href="#capturedTexts">capturedTexts</a>()
+which returns a string list of all captured strings, or using
+<a href="#cap">cap</a>() which returns the captured string for the given index. The
+<a href="#pos">pos</a>() function takes a match index and returns the position in the
+string where the match was made (or -1 if there was no match).
+<p> <p>See also <a href="qregexpvalidator.html">TQRegExpValidator</a>, <a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a>, <a href="ntqstringlist.html">TQStringList</a>, <a href="misc.html">Miscellaneous Classes</a>, <a href="shared.html">Implicitly and Explicitly Shared Classes</a>, and <a href="tools.html">Non-GUI Classes</a>.
+
+<p> <a name="member-function-documentation"></a>
+
+<hr><h2>Member Type Documentation</h2>
+<h3 class=fn><a name="CaretMode-enum"></a>TQRegExp::CaretMode</h3>
+
+<p> The CaretMode enum defines the different meanings of the caret
+(<b>^</b>) in a <a href="ntqregexp.html#regular-expression">regular expression</a>. The possible values are:
+<ul>
+<li><tt>TQRegExp::CaretAtZero</tt> -
+The caret corresponds to index 0 in the searched string.
+<li><tt>TQRegExp::CaretAtOffset</tt> -
+The caret corresponds to the start offset of the search.
+<li><tt>TQRegExp::CaretWontMatch</tt> -
+The caret never matches.
+</ul>
+<hr><h2>Member Function Documentation</h2>
+<h3 class=fn><a name="TQRegExp"></a>TQRegExp::TQRegExp ()
+</h3>
+Constructs an empty regexp.
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#isValid">isValid</a>() and <a href="#errorString">errorString</a>().
+
+<h3 class=fn><a name="TQRegExp-2"></a>TQRegExp::TQRegExp ( const&nbsp;<a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a>&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;pattern, bool&nbsp;caseSensitive = TRUE, bool&nbsp;wildcard = FALSE )
+</h3>
+Constructs a <a href="ntqregexp.html#regular-expression">regular expression</a> object for the given <em>pattern</em>
+string. The pattern must be given using wildcard notation if <em>wildcard</em> is TRUE (default is FALSE). The pattern is case
+sensitive, unless <em>caseSensitive</em> is FALSE. Matching is greedy
+(maximal), but can be changed by calling <a href="#setMinimal">setMinimal</a>().
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#setPattern">setPattern</a>(), <a href="#setCaseSensitive">setCaseSensitive</a>(), <a href="#setWildcard">setWildcard</a>(), and <a href="#setMinimal">setMinimal</a>().
+
+<h3 class=fn><a name="TQRegExp-3"></a>TQRegExp::TQRegExp ( const&nbsp;<a href="ntqregexp.html">TQRegExp</a>&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;rx )
+</h3>
+Constructs a <a href="ntqregexp.html#regular-expression">regular expression</a> as a copy of <em>rx</em>.
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#operator-eq">operator=</a>().
+
+<h3 class=fn><a name="~TQRegExp"></a>TQRegExp::~TQRegExp ()
+</h3>
+Destroys the <a href="ntqregexp.html#regular-expression">regular expression</a> and cleans up its internal data.
+
+<h3 class=fn><a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a> <a name="cap"></a>TQRegExp::cap ( int&nbsp;nth = 0 )
+</h3>
+Returns the text captured by the <em>nth</em> subexpression. The entire
+match has index 0 and the parenthesized subexpressions have
+indices starting from 1 (excluding non-capturing parentheses).
+<p> <pre>
+ TQRegExp rxlen( "(\\d+)(?:\\s*)(cm|inch)" );
+ int pos = rxlen.<a href="#search">search</a>( "Length: 189cm" );
+ if ( pos &gt; -1 ) {
+ <a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a> value = rxlen.<a href="#cap">cap</a>( 1 ); // "189"
+ <a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a> unit = rxlen.<a href="#cap">cap</a>( 2 ); // "cm"
+ // ...
+ }
+ </pre>
+
+<p> The order of elements matched by <a href="#cap">cap</a>() is as follows. The first
+element, cap(0), is the entire matching string. Each subsequent
+element corresponds to the next capturing open left parentheses.
+Thus cap(1) is the text of the first capturing parentheses, cap(2)
+is the text of the second, and so on.
+<p> <a name="cap_in_a_loop"></a>
+Some patterns may lead to a number of matches which cannot be
+determined in advance, for example:
+<p> <pre>
+ TQRegExp rx( "(\\d+)" );
+ str = "Offsets: 12 14 99 231 7";
+ <a href="ntqstringlist.html">TQStringList</a> list;
+ pos = 0;
+ while ( pos &gt;= 0 ) {
+ pos = rx.<a href="#search">search</a>( str, pos );
+ if ( pos &gt; -1 ) {
+ list += rx.<a href="#cap">cap</a>( 1 );
+ pos += rx.<a href="#matchedLength">matchedLength</a>();
+ }
+ }
+ // list contains "12", "14", "99", "231", "7"
+ </pre>
+
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#capturedTexts">capturedTexts</a>(), <a href="#pos">pos</a>(), <a href="#exactMatch">exactMatch</a>(), <a href="#search">search</a>(), and <a href="#searchRev">searchRev</a>().
+
+<p>Examples: <a href="archivesearch-example.html#x479">network/archivesearch/archivedialog.ui.h</a> and <a href="regexptester-example.html#x2485">regexptester/regexptester.cpp</a>.
+<h3 class=fn><a href="ntqstringlist.html">TQStringList</a> <a name="capturedTexts"></a>TQRegExp::capturedTexts ()
+</h3>
+Returns a list of the captured text strings.
+<p> The first string in the list is the entire matched string. Each
+subsequent list element contains a string that matched a
+(capturing) subexpression of the regexp.
+<p> For example:
+<pre>
+ TQRegExp rx( "(\\d+)(\\s*)(cm|inch(es)?)" );
+ int pos = rx.<a href="#search">search</a>( "Length: 36 inches" );
+ <a href="ntqstringlist.html">TQStringList</a> list = rx.<a href="#capturedTexts">capturedTexts</a>();
+ // list is now ( "36 inches", "36", " ", "inches", "es" )
+ </pre>
+
+<p> The above example also captures elements that may be present but
+which we have no interest in. This problem can be solved by using
+non-capturing parentheses:
+<p> <pre>
+ TQRegExp rx( "(\\d+)(?:\\s*)(cm|inch(?:es)?)" );
+ int pos = rx.<a href="#search">search</a>( "Length: 36 inches" );
+ <a href="ntqstringlist.html">TQStringList</a> list = rx.<a href="#capturedTexts">capturedTexts</a>();
+ // list is now ( "36 inches", "36", "inches" )
+ </pre>
+
+<p> Note that if you want to iterate over the list, you should iterate
+over a copy, e.g.
+<pre>
+ <a href="ntqstringlist.html">TQStringList</a> list = rx.capturedTexts();
+ TQStringList::Iterator it = list.<a href="ntqvaluelist.html#begin">begin</a>();
+ while( it != list.<a href="ntqvaluelist.html#end">end</a>() ) {
+ myProcessing( *it );
+ ++it;
+ }
+ </pre>
+
+<p> Some regexps can match an indeterminate number of times. For
+example if the input string is "Offsets: 12 14 99 231 7" and the
+regexp, <tt>rx</tt>, is <b>(&#92;d+)+</b>, we would hope to get a list of
+all the numbers matched. However, after calling
+<tt>rx.search(str)</tt>, <a href="#capturedTexts">capturedTexts</a>() will return the list ( "12",
+"12" ), i.e. the entire match was "12" and the first subexpression
+matched was "12". The correct approach is to use <a href="#cap">cap</a>() in a <a href="#cap_in_a_loop">loop</a>.
+<p> The order of elements in the string list is as follows. The first
+element is the entire matching string. Each subsequent element
+corresponds to the next capturing open left parentheses. Thus
+capturedTexts()[1] is the text of the first capturing parentheses,
+capturedTexts()[2] is the text of the second and so on
+(corresponding to $1, $2, etc., in some other regexp languages).
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#cap">cap</a>(), <a href="#pos">pos</a>(), <a href="#exactMatch">exactMatch</a>(), <a href="#search">search</a>(), and <a href="#searchRev">searchRev</a>().
+
+<h3 class=fn>bool <a name="caseSensitive"></a>TQRegExp::caseSensitive () const
+</h3>
+Returns TRUE if case sensitivity is enabled; otherwise returns
+FALSE. The default is TRUE.
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#setCaseSensitive">setCaseSensitive</a>().
+
+<h3 class=fn><a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a> <a name="errorString"></a>TQRegExp::errorString ()
+</h3>
+Returns a text string that explains why a regexp pattern is
+invalid the case being; otherwise returns "no error occurred".
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#isValid">isValid</a>().
+
+<p>Example: <a href="regexptester-example.html#x2486">regexptester/regexptester.cpp</a>.
+<h3 class=fn><a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a> <a name="escape"></a>TQRegExp::escape ( const&nbsp;<a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a>&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;str )<tt> [static]</tt>
+</h3>
+Returns the string <em>str</em> with every regexp special character
+escaped with a backslash. The special characters are $, (, ), *, +,
+., ?, [, &#92;, ], ^, {, | and }.
+<p> Example:
+<pre>
+ s1 = TQRegExp::<a href="#escape">escape</a>( "bingo" ); // s1 == "bingo"
+ s2 = TQRegExp::<a href="#escape">escape</a>( "f(x)" ); // s2 == "f\\(x\\)"
+ </pre>
+
+<p> This function is useful to construct regexp patterns dynamically:
+<p> <pre>
+ TQRegExp rx( "(" + TQRegExp::escape(name) +
+ "|" + TQRegExp::escape(alias) + ")" );
+ </pre>
+
+
+<h3 class=fn>bool <a name="exactMatch"></a>TQRegExp::exactMatch ( const&nbsp;<a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a>&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;str ) const
+</h3>
+Returns TRUE if <em>str</em> is matched exactly by this <a href="ntqregexp.html#regular-expression">regular expression</a>; otherwise returns FALSE. You can determine how much of
+the string was matched by calling <a href="#matchedLength">matchedLength</a>().
+<p> For a given regexp string, R, <a href="#exactMatch">exactMatch</a>("R") is the equivalent of
+<a href="#search">search</a>("^R$") since exactMatch() effectively encloses the regexp
+in the start of string and end of string anchors, except that it
+sets matchedLength() differently.
+<p> For example, if the regular expression is <b>blue</b>, then
+exactMatch() returns TRUE only for input <tt>blue</tt>. For inputs <tt>bluebell</tt>, <tt>blutak</tt> and <tt>lightblue</tt>, exactMatch() returns FALSE
+and matchedLength() will return 4, 3 and 0 respectively.
+<p> Although const, this function sets matchedLength(),
+<a href="#capturedTexts">capturedTexts</a>() and <a href="#pos">pos</a>().
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#search">search</a>(), <a href="#searchRev">searchRev</a>(), and <a href="qregexpvalidator.html">TQRegExpValidator</a>.
+
+<h3 class=fn>bool <a name="isEmpty"></a>TQRegExp::isEmpty () const
+</h3>
+Returns TRUE if the pattern string is empty; otherwise returns
+FALSE.
+<p> If you call <a href="#exactMatch">exactMatch</a>() with an empty pattern on an empty string
+it will return TRUE; otherwise it returns FALSE since it operates
+over the whole string. If you call <a href="#search">search</a>() with an empty pattern
+on <em>any</em> string it will return the start offset (0 by default)
+because the empty pattern matches the 'emptiness' at the start of
+the string. In this case the length of the match returned by
+<a href="#matchedLength">matchedLength</a>() will be 0.
+<p> See <a href="ntqstring.html#isEmpty">TQString::isEmpty</a>().
+
+<h3 class=fn>bool <a name="isValid"></a>TQRegExp::isValid () const
+</h3>
+Returns TRUE if the <a href="ntqregexp.html#regular-expression">regular expression</a> is valid; otherwise returns
+FALSE. An invalid regular expression never matches.
+<p> The pattern <b>[a-z</b> is an example of an invalid pattern, since
+it lacks a closing square bracket.
+<p> Note that the validity of a regexp may also depend on the setting
+of the wildcard flag, for example <b>*.html</b> is a valid
+wildcard regexp but an invalid full regexp.
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#errorString">errorString</a>().
+
+<p>Example: <a href="regexptester-example.html#x2487">regexptester/regexptester.cpp</a>.
+<h3 class=fn>int <a name="match"></a>TQRegExp::match ( const&nbsp;<a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a>&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;str, int&nbsp;index = 0, int&nbsp;*&nbsp;len = 0, bool&nbsp;indexIsStart = TRUE ) const
+</h3> <b>This function is obsolete.</b> It is provided to keep old source working. We strongly advise against using it in new code.
+<p> Attempts to match in <em>str</em>, starting from position <em>index</em>.
+Returns the position of the match, or -1 if there was no match.
+<p> The length of the match is stored in <em>*len</em>, unless <em>len</em> is a
+null pointer.
+<p> If <em>indexIsStart</em> is TRUE (the default), the position <em>index</em> in
+the string will match the start of string anchor, <b>^</b>, in the
+regexp, if present. Otherwise, position 0 in <em>str</em> will match.
+<p> Use <a href="#search">search</a>() and <a href="#matchedLength">matchedLength</a>() instead of this function.
+<p> <p>See also <a href="ntqstring.html#mid">TQString::mid</a>() and <a href="qconststring.html">TQConstString</a>.
+
+<p>Example: <a href="qmag-example.html#x1791">qmag/qmag.cpp</a>.
+<h3 class=fn>int <a name="matchedLength"></a>TQRegExp::matchedLength () const
+</h3>
+Returns the length of the last matched string, or -1 if there was
+no match.
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#exactMatch">exactMatch</a>(), <a href="#search">search</a>(), and <a href="#searchRev">searchRev</a>().
+
+<p>Examples: <a href="archivesearch-example.html#x480">network/archivesearch/archivedialog.ui.h</a> and <a href="regexptester-example.html#x2488">regexptester/regexptester.cpp</a>.
+<h3 class=fn>bool <a name="minimal"></a>TQRegExp::minimal () const
+</h3>
+Returns TRUE if minimal (non-greedy) matching is enabled;
+otherwise returns FALSE.
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#setMinimal">setMinimal</a>().
+
+<h3 class=fn>int <a name="numCaptures"></a>TQRegExp::numCaptures () const
+</h3>
+Returns the number of captures contained in the <a href="ntqregexp.html#regular-expression">regular expression</a>.
+
+<p>Example: <a href="regexptester-example.html#x2489">regexptester/regexptester.cpp</a>.
+<h3 class=fn>bool <a name="operator!-eq"></a>TQRegExp::operator!= ( const&nbsp;<a href="ntqregexp.html">TQRegExp</a>&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;rx ) const
+</h3>
+
+<p> Returns TRUE if this <a href="ntqregexp.html#regular-expression">regular expression</a> is not equal to <em>rx</em>;
+otherwise returns FALSE.
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#operator-eq-eq">operator==</a>().
+
+<h3 class=fn><a href="ntqregexp.html">TQRegExp</a>&nbsp;&amp; <a name="operator-eq"></a>TQRegExp::operator= ( const&nbsp;<a href="ntqregexp.html">TQRegExp</a>&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;rx )
+</h3>
+Copies the <a href="ntqregexp.html#regular-expression">regular expression</a> <em>rx</em> and returns a reference to the
+copy. The case sensitivity, wildcard and minimal matching options
+are also copied.
+
+<h3 class=fn>bool <a name="operator-eq-eq"></a>TQRegExp::operator== ( const&nbsp;<a href="ntqregexp.html">TQRegExp</a>&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;rx ) const
+</h3>
+Returns TRUE if this <a href="ntqregexp.html#regular-expression">regular expression</a> is equal to <em>rx</em>;
+otherwise returns FALSE.
+<p> Two TQRegExp objects are equal if they have the same pattern
+strings and the same settings for case sensitivity, wildcard and
+minimal matching.
+
+<h3 class=fn><a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a> <a name="pattern"></a>TQRegExp::pattern () const
+</h3>
+Returns the pattern string of the <a href="ntqregexp.html#regular-expression">regular expression</a>. The pattern
+has either regular expression syntax or wildcard syntax, depending
+on <a href="#wildcard">wildcard</a>().
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#setPattern">setPattern</a>().
+
+<h3 class=fn>int <a name="pos"></a>TQRegExp::pos ( int&nbsp;nth = 0 )
+</h3>
+Returns the position of the <em>nth</em> captured text in the searched
+string. If <em>nth</em> is 0 (the default), <a href="#pos">pos</a>() returns the position
+of the whole match.
+<p> Example:
+<pre>
+ TQRegExp rx( "/([a-z]+)/([a-z]+)" );
+ rx.<a href="#search">search</a>( "Output /dev/null" ); // returns 7 (position of /dev/null)
+ rx.<a href="#pos">pos</a>( 0 ); // returns 7 (position of /dev/null)
+ rx.<a href="#pos">pos</a>( 1 ); // returns 8 (position of dev)
+ rx.<a href="#pos">pos</a>( 2 ); // returns 12 (position of null)
+ </pre>
+
+<p> For zero-length matches, pos() always returns -1. (For example, if
+<a href="#cap">cap</a>(4) would return an empty string, pos(4) returns -1.) This is
+due to an implementation tradeoff.
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#capturedTexts">capturedTexts</a>(), <a href="#exactMatch">exactMatch</a>(), <a href="#search">search</a>(), and <a href="#searchRev">searchRev</a>().
+
+<h3 class=fn>int <a name="search"></a>TQRegExp::search ( const&nbsp;<a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a>&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;str, int&nbsp;offset = 0, <a href="ntqregexp.html#CaretMode-enum">CaretMode</a>&nbsp;caretMode = CaretAtZero ) const
+</h3>
+Attempts to find a match in <em>str</em> from position <em>offset</em> (0 by
+default). If <em>offset</em> is -1, the search starts at the last
+character; if -2, at the next to last character; etc.
+<p> Returns the position of the first match, or -1 if there was no
+match.
+<p> The <em>caretMode</em> parameter can be used to instruct whether <b>^</b>
+should match at index 0 or at <em>offset</em>.
+<p> You might prefer to use <a href="ntqstring.html#find">TQString::find</a>(), <a href="ntqstring.html#contains">TQString::contains</a>() or
+even <a href="ntqstringlist.html#grep">TQStringList::grep</a>(). To replace matches use
+<a href="ntqstring.html#replace">TQString::replace</a>().
+<p> Example:
+<pre>
+ <a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a> str = "offsets: 1.23 .50 71.00 6.00";
+ TQRegExp rx( "\\d*\\.\\d+" ); // primitive floating point matching
+ int count = 0;
+ int pos = 0;
+ while ( (pos = rx.<a href="#search">search</a>(str, pos)) != -1 ) {
+ count++;
+ pos += rx.<a href="#matchedLength">matchedLength</a>();
+ }
+ // pos will be 9, 14, 18 and finally 24; count will end up as 4
+ </pre>
+
+<p> Although const, this function sets <a href="#matchedLength">matchedLength</a>(),
+<a href="#capturedTexts">capturedTexts</a>() and <a href="#pos">pos</a>().
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#searchRev">searchRev</a>() and <a href="#exactMatch">exactMatch</a>().
+
+<p>Examples: <a href="archivesearch-example.html#x481">network/archivesearch/archivedialog.ui.h</a> and <a href="regexptester-example.html#x2490">regexptester/regexptester.cpp</a>.
+<h3 class=fn>int <a name="searchRev"></a>TQRegExp::searchRev ( const&nbsp;<a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a>&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;str, int&nbsp;offset = -1, <a href="ntqregexp.html#CaretMode-enum">CaretMode</a>&nbsp;caretMode = CaretAtZero ) const
+</h3>
+Attempts to find a match backwards in <em>str</em> from position <em>offset</em>. If <em>offset</em> is -1 (the default), the search starts at the
+last character; if -2, at the next to last character; etc.
+<p> Returns the position of the first match, or -1 if there was no
+match.
+<p> The <em>caretMode</em> parameter can be used to instruct whether <b>^</b>
+should match at index 0 or at <em>offset</em>.
+<p> Although const, this function sets <a href="#matchedLength">matchedLength</a>(),
+<a href="#capturedTexts">capturedTexts</a>() and <a href="#pos">pos</a>().
+<p> <b>Warning:</b> Searching backwards is much slower than searching
+forwards.
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#search">search</a>() and <a href="#exactMatch">exactMatch</a>().
+
+<h3 class=fn>void <a name="setCaseSensitive"></a>TQRegExp::setCaseSensitive ( bool&nbsp;sensitive )
+</h3>
+Sets case sensitive matching to <em>sensitive</em>.
+<p> If <em>sensitive</em> is TRUE, <b>&#92;.txt$</b> matches <tt>readme.txt</tt> but
+not <tt>README.TXT</tt>.
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#caseSensitive">caseSensitive</a>().
+
+<p>Example: <a href="regexptester-example.html#x2491">regexptester/regexptester.cpp</a>.
+<h3 class=fn>void <a name="setMinimal"></a>TQRegExp::setMinimal ( bool&nbsp;minimal )
+</h3>
+Enables or disables minimal matching. If <em>minimal</em> is FALSE,
+matching is greedy (maximal) which is the default.
+<p> For example, suppose we have the input string "We must be
+&lt;b>bold&lt;/b>, very &lt;b>bold&lt;/b>!" and the pattern
+<b>&lt;b>.*&lt;/b></b>. With the default greedy (maximal) matching,
+the match is "We must be <u>&lt;b>bold&lt;/b>, very
+&lt;b>bold&lt;/b></u>!". But with minimal (non-greedy) matching the
+first match is: "We must be <u>&lt;b>bold&lt;/b></u>, very
+&lt;b>bold&lt;/b>!" and the second match is "We must be &lt;b>bold&lt;/b>,
+very <u>&lt;b>bold&lt;/b></u>!". In practice we might use the pattern
+<b>&lt;b>[^&lt;]+&lt;/b></b> instead, although this will still fail for
+nested tags.
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#minimal">minimal</a>().
+
+<p>Examples: <a href="archivesearch-example.html#x482">network/archivesearch/archivedialog.ui.h</a> and <a href="regexptester-example.html#x2492">regexptester/regexptester.cpp</a>.
+<h3 class=fn>void <a name="setPattern"></a>TQRegExp::setPattern ( const&nbsp;<a href="ntqstring.html">TQString</a>&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;pattern )
+</h3>
+Sets the pattern string to <em>pattern</em>. The case sensitivity,
+wildcard and minimal matching options are not changed.
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#pattern">pattern</a>().
+
+<h3 class=fn>void <a name="setWildcard"></a>TQRegExp::setWildcard ( bool&nbsp;wildcard )
+</h3>
+Sets the wildcard mode for the <a href="ntqregexp.html#regular-expression">regular expression</a>. The default is
+FALSE.
+<p> Setting <em>wildcard</em> to TRUE enables simple shell-like wildcard
+matching. (See <a href="#wildcard-matching">wildcard matching
+ (globbing)</a>.)
+<p> For example, <b>r*.txt</b> matches the string <tt>readme.txt</tt> in
+wildcard mode, but does not match <tt>readme</tt>.
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#wildcard">wildcard</a>().
+
+<p>Example: <a href="regexptester-example.html#x2493">regexptester/regexptester.cpp</a>.
+<h3 class=fn>bool <a name="wildcard"></a>TQRegExp::wildcard () const
+</h3>
+Returns TRUE if wildcard mode is enabled; otherwise returns FALSE.
+The default is FALSE.
+<p> <p>See also <a href="#setWildcard">setWildcard</a>().
+
+<!-- eof -->
+<hr><p>
+This file is part of the <a href="index.html">TQt toolkit</a>.
+Copyright &copy; 1995-2007
+<a href="http://www.trolltech.com/">Trolltech</a>. All Rights Reserved.<p><address><hr><div align=center>
+<table width=100% cellspacing=0 border=0><tr>
+<td>Copyright &copy; 2007
+<a href="troll.html">Trolltech</a><td align=center><a href="trademarks.html">Trademarks</a>
+<td align=right><div align=right>TQt 3.3.8</div>
+</table></div></address></body>
+</html>