Glossary

Regular Expression

A sequence of characters that represents a pattern.

Regular Expression Engine

A specific implementation of regular expressions used by a specific programming language.

Literal Character

A character in a regular expression that matches itself.

Character Class

A set of characters enclosed in brackets. It matches any one of the characters in the set.

Metacharacter (also called “Special Character”)

A character in a regular expression that does not match itself, but instead has a special role in specifying the overall pattern.