Parentheses Used For Pattern Recall - Cisco XR 12000 Series Getting Started Manual

Appendix A Understanding Regular Expressions, Special Characters, and Patterns

Parentheses Used for Pattern Recall

Parentheses Used for Pattern Recall

Use parentheses with multiple-character regular expressions to multiply the occurrence of a pattern. The
Cisco IOS XR software can remember a pattern for use elsewhere in the regular expression.
To create a regular expression that recalls a previous pattern, use parentheses to indicate memory of a
specific pattern and a backslash (\\) followed by a digit to reuse the remembered pattern. The digit
specifies the occurrence of a parenthesis in the regular expression pattern. When there is more than one
remembered pattern in the regular expression, \\1 indicates the first remembered pattern, \\2 indicates
the second remembered pattern, and so on.
The following regular expression uses parentheses for recall:
a(.)bc(.)\\1\\2
This regular expression matches an a followed by any character (call it character number 1), followed by
bc followed by any character (character number 2), followed by character number 1 again, followed by
character number 2 again. So, the regular expression can match aZbcTZT. The software remembers that
character number 1 is Z and character number 2 is T, and then uses Z and T again later in the regular
expression.
Cisco IOS XR Getting Started Guide for the Cisco XR 12000 Series Router
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