A metacharacter in a regular expression carries syntactic meaning rather than matching literally. section 10.2
The refresher names these regular-expression characters:
- ^, $, ?, +, *, braces, -, |, backslash, and parentheses. section 10.2
Metacharacter
A character in a regular expression that has a syntactic meaning rather than being matched literally.
How Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja, Second Edition covers it
- How deep it goes
- Surveys common regular-expression characters but stops short of an exhaustive tutorial.
- Examples
- Names ^, $, ?, +, *, braces, -, |, backslash, and parentheses as examples.
- What you can do after
- Understand that listed characters carry regular-expression syntax rather than matching literally.
- How it connects
- Connects metacharacters to regular expressions and syntax characters such as ^, $, ?, +, *, braces, -, |, backslash, and parentheses.
Related concepts
- escape sequenceused by · An escape sequence is source notation, typically using an escape marker, that represents a character or control value or changes how characters are interpreted.
- regular expressionused by · A formal pattern notation that describes sets of strings and enables text to be matched, searched, extracted, or transformed.
- injection attackcontrasts with · An injection attack is a security attack in which crafted or untrusted input is interpreted as commands, code, or query structure by a target system.
- character classequivalent to · A character class is a regular-expression construct that matches one character belonging to, or excluded from, a specified set, range, or property.
- escape characterimplemented by · A backslash is a punctuation character commonly used in programming and text syntaxes to introduce an escape sequence or alter the interpretation of a following character.
- HTML tagcontrasts with · An HTML tag is angle-bracket-delimited markup that identifies, structures, or marks the boundary of an element in an HTML document.
This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja, Second Edition. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.