3.3 The Backslash Character and Special Expressions

The ‘\’ character, when followed by certain ordinary characters, takes a special meaning:

‘‘\b’’

Match the empty string at the edge of a word.

‘‘\B’’

Match the empty string provided it’s not at the edge of a word.

‘‘\<’’

Match the empty string at the beginning of word.

‘‘\>’’

Match the empty string at the end of word.

‘‘\w’’

Match word constituent, it is a synonym for ‘[[:alnum:]]’.

‘‘\W’’

Match non-word constituent, it is a synonym for ‘[^[:alnum:]]’.

‘‘\s’’

Match whitespace, it is a synonym for ‘[[:space:]]’.

‘‘\S’’

Match non-whitespace, it is a synonym for ‘[^[:space:]]’.

For example, ‘\brat\b’ matches the separate word ‘rat’, ‘\Brat\B’ matches ‘crate’ but not ‘furry rat’.

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