User Guide › Design › Data Acquisition › Adapters › Regular Expression Syntax › Alternatives

Alternatives

Alternatives occur when the expression can match either one sub-expression or another, each alternative is separated by a "|", or a "\|" if the flag regbase::bk_vbar is set, or by a newline character if the flag regbase::newline_alt is set. Each alternative is the largest possible previous sub-expression; this is the opposite behavior from repetition operators.

Examples:

• "a(b|c)" could match "ab" or "ac".
• "abc|def" could match "abc" or "def".