Pattern Matching

PostgreSQL 7.2 Documentation
Prev | Chapter 4. Functions and Operators | Next

# 4.6. Pattern Matching

There are two separate approaches to pattern matching provided by PostgreSQL: the SQL `LIKE` operator and POSIX-style regular expressions.

> Tip: If you have pattern matching needs that go beyond this, or want to make pattern-driven substitutions or translations, consider writing a user-defined function in Perl or Tcl.

## 4.6.1. Pattern Matching with `LIKE`

    string LIKE pattern [ ESCAPE escape-character ]
    string NOT LIKE pattern [ ESCAPE escape-character ]

Every `pattern` defines a set of strings. The `LIKE` expression returns true if the `string` is contained in the set of strings represented by `pattern`. (As expected, the `NOT LIKE` expression returns false if `LIKE` returns true, and vice versa. An equivalent expression is `NOT (`string` LIKE `pattern`)`.)

If `pattern` does not contain percent signs or underscore, then the pattern only represents the string itself; in that case `LIKE` acts like the equals operator. An underscore (`_`) in `pattern` stands for (matches) any single character; a percent sign (`%`) matches any string of zero or more characters.

Some examples:

    'abc' LIKE 'abc'    true
    'abc' LIKE 'a%'     true
    'abc' LIKE '_b_'    true
    'abc' LIKE 'c'      false

`LIKE` pattern matches always cover the entire string. To match a pattern anywhere within a string, the pattern must therefore start and end with a percent sign.

To match a literal underscore or percent sign without matching other characters, the respective character in `pattern` must be preceded by the escape character. The default escape character is the backslash but a different one may be selected by using the `ESCAPE` clause. To match the escape character itself, write two escape characters.

Note that the backslash already has a special meaning in string literals, so to write a pattern constant that contains a backslash you must write two backslashes in the query. Thus, writing a pattern that actually matches a literal backslash means writing four backslashes in the query. You can avoid this by selecting a different escape character with `ESCAPE`; then backslash is not special to `LIKE` anymore. (But it is still special to the string literal parser, so you still need two of them.)

It's also possible to select no escape character by writing `ESCAPE ''`. In this case there is no way to turn off the special meaning of underscore and percent signs in the pattern.

The keyword ILIKE can be used instead of LIKE to make the match case insensitive according to the active locale. This is not in the SQL standard but is a PostgreSQL extension.

The operator `~~` is equivalent to `LIKE`, and `~~*` corresponds to `ILIKE`. There are also `!~~` and `!~~*` operators that represent `NOT LIKE` and `NOT ILIKE`. All of these operators are PostgreSQL-specific.

## 4.6.2. POSIX Regular Expressions

Table 4-10. Regular Expression Match Operators

Operator | Description | Example
--- | --- | ---
`~` | Matches regular expression, case sensitive | `'thomas' ~ '.*thomas.*'`
`~*` | Matches regular expression, case insensitive | `'thomas' ~* '.*Thomas.*'`
`!~` | Does not match regular expression, case sensitive | `'thomas' !~ '.*Thomas.*'`
`!~*` | Does not match regular expression, case insensitive | `'thomas' !~* '.*vadim.*'`

POSIX regular expressions provide a more powerful means for pattern matching than the `LIKE` function. Many Unix tools such as egrep, sed, or awk use a pattern matching language that is similar to the one described here.

A regular expression is a character sequence that is an abbreviated definition of a set of strings (a regular set). A string is said to match a regular expression if it is a member of the regular set described by the regular expression. As with `LIKE`, pattern characters match string characters exactly unless they are special characters in the regular expression language --- but regular expressions use different special characters than `LIKE` does. Unlike `LIKE` patterns, a regular expression is allowed to match anywhere within a string, unless the regular expression is explicitly anchored to the beginning or end of the string.

Regular expressions ("RE"s), as defined in POSIX 1003.2, come in two forms: modern REs (roughly those of egrep; 1003.2 calls these "extended" REs) and obsolete REs (roughly those of ed; 1003.2 "basic" REs). PostgreSQL implements the modern form.

A (modern) RE is one or more non-empty branches, separated by `|`. It matches anything that matches one of the branches.

A branch is one or more pieces, concatenated. It matches a match for the first, followed by a match for the second, etc.

A piece is an atom possibly followed by a single `*`, `+`, `?`, or bound. An atom followed by `*` matches a sequence of 0 or more matches of the atom. An atom followed by `+` matches a sequence of 1 or more matches of the atom. An atom followed by `?` matches a sequence of 0 or 1 matches of the atom.

A bound is `{` followed by an unsigned decimal integer, possibly followed by `,` possibly followed by another unsigned decimal integer, always followed by `}`. The integers must lie between 0 and `RE_DUP_MAX` (255) inclusive, and if there are two of them, the first may not exceed the second. An atom followed by a bound containing one integer `i` and no comma matches a sequence of exactly `i` matches of the atom. An atom followed by a bound containing one integer `i` and a comma matches a sequence of `i` or more matches of the atom. An atom followed by a bound containing two integers `i` and `j` matches a sequence of `i` through `j` (inclusive) matches of the atom.

> Note: A repetition operator (`?`, `*`, `+`, or bounds) cannot follow another repetition operator. A repetition operator cannot begin an expression or subexpression or follow `^` or `|`.

An atom is a regular expression enclosed in `()` (matching a match for the regular expression), an empty set of `()` (matching the null string), a bracket expression (see below), `.` (matching any single character), `^` (matching the null string at the beginning of the input string), `$` (matching the null string at the end of the input string), a `\` followed by one of the characters `^.[$()|*+?{\` (matching that character taken as an ordinary character), a `\` followed by any other character (matching that character taken as an ordinary character, as if the `\` had not been present), or a single character with no other significance (matching that character). A `{` followed by a character other than a digit is an ordinary character, not the beginning of a bound. It is illegal to end an RE with `\`.

Note that the backslash (`\`) already has a special meaning in string literals, so to write a pattern constant that contains a backslash you must write two backslashes in the query.

A bracket expression is a list of characters enclosed in `[]`. It normally matches any single character from the list (but see below). If the list begins with `^`, it matches any single character (but see below) not from the rest of the list. If two characters in the list are separated by `-`, this is shorthand for the full range of characters between those two (inclusive) in the collating sequence, e.g. `[0-9]` in ASCII matches any decimal digit. It is illegal for two ranges to share an endpoint, e.g. `a-c-e`. Ranges are very collating-sequence-dependent, and portable programs should avoid relying on them.

To include a literal `]` in the list, make it the first character (following a possible `^`). To include a literal `-`, make it the first or last character, or the second endpoint of a range. To use a literal `-` as the first endpoint of a range, enclose it in `[.` and `.]` to make it a collating element (see below). With the exception of these and some combinations using `[` (see next paragraphs), all other special characters, including `\`, lose their special significance within a bracket expression.

Within a bracket expression, a collating element (a character, a multiple-character sequence that collates as if it were a single character, or a collating-sequence name for either) enclosed in `[.` and `.]` stands for the sequence of characters of that collating element. The sequence is a single element of the bracket expression's list. A bracket expression containing a multiple-character collating element can thus match more than one character, e.g. if the collating sequence includes a `ch` collating element, then the RE `[[.ch.]]*c` matches the first five characters of `chchcc`.

Within a bracket expression, a collating element enclosed in `[=` and `=]` is an equivalence class, standing for the sequences of characters of all collating elements equivalent to that one, including itself. (If there are no other equivalent collating elements, the treatment is as if the enclosing delimiters were `[.` and `.]`.) For example, if `o` and `^` are the members of an equivalence class, then `[[=o=]]`, `[[=^=]]`, and `[o^]` are all synonymous. An equivalence class may not be an endpoint of a range.

Within a bracket expression, the name of a character class enclosed in `[:` and `:]` stands for the list of all characters belonging to that class. Standard character class names are: `alnum`, `alpha`, `blank`, `cntrl`, `digit`, `graph`, `lower`, `print`, `punct`, `space`, `upper`, `xdigit`. These stand for the character classes defined in ctype. A locale may provide others. A character class may not be used as an endpoint of a range.

There are two special cases of bracket expressions: the bracket expressions `[[:<:]]` and `[[:>:]]` match the null string at the beginning and end of a word respectively. A word is defined as a sequence of word characters which is neither preceded nor followed by word characters. A word character is an alnum character (as defined by ctype) or an underscore. This is an extension, compatible with but not specified by POSIX 1003.2, and should be used with caution in software intended to be portable to other systems.

In the event that an RE could match more than one substring of a given string, the RE matches the one starting earliest in the string. If the RE could match more than one substring starting at that point, it matches the longest. Subexpressions also match the longest possible substrings, subject to the constraint that the whole match be as long as possible, with subexpressions starting earlier in the RE taking priority over ones starting later. Note that higher-level subexpressions thus take priority over their lower-level component subexpressions.

Match lengths are measured in characters, not collating elements. A null string is considered longer than no match at all. For example, `bb*` matches the three middle characters of `abbbc`, `(wee|week)(knights|nights)` matches all ten characters of `weeknights`, when `(.*).*` is matched against `abc` the parenthesized subexpression matches all three characters, and when `(a*)*` is matched against `bc` both the whole RE and the parenthesized subexpression match the null string.

If case-independent matching is specified, the effect is much as if all case distinctions had vanished from the alphabet. When an alphabetic that exists in multiple cases appears as an ordinary character outside a bracket expression, it is effectively transformed into a bracket expression containing both cases, e.g. `x` becomes `[xX]`. When it appears inside a bracket expression, all case counterparts of it are added to the bracket expression, so that (e.g.) `[x]` becomes `[xX]` and `[^x]` becomes `[^xX]`.

There is no particular limit on the length of REs, except insofar as memory is limited. Memory usage is approximately linear in RE size, and largely insensitive to RE complexity, except for bounded repetitions. Bounded repetitions are implemented by macro expansion, which is costly in time and space if counts are large or bounded repetitions are nested. An RE like, say, `((((a{1,100}){1,100}){1,100}){1,100}){1,100}` will (eventually) run almost any existing machine out of swap space. [1]

### Notes

[1] | This was written in 1994, mind you. The numbers have probably changed, but the problem persists.

Prev | Home | Next
Binary String Functions and Operators | Up | Data Type Formatting Functions