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Back References

A back reference is a reference to a previous sub-expression that has already been matched, the reference is to what the sub-expression matched, not to the expression itself. A back reference consists of the escape character "\" followed by a digit "1" to "9", "\1" refers to the first sub-expression, "\2" to the second etc. For example the expression "(.*)\1" matches any string that is repeated about its mid-point for example "abcabc" or "xyzxyz". A back reference to a sub-expression that did not participate in any match, matches the null string: NB this is different to some other regular expression matchers. Back references are only available if the expression is compiled with the flag regbase::bk_refs set.