Caret "^", Regex Meta-Character, String Pattern Match, Example

Tutorials

Regular-expression

Topic

What is Regular Expression meta-character Caret "^"?

Explanation

In Regular Expression, the "^" meta-character is used to match the characters from the begining of a string.

For example if we use "^The" then it tries to match the begining of the string for "The".

PHP Example:

    <?php
    $string = "This is a church";
    if (preg_match("/^This/", $string))
     {
      echo "Regex Pattern matches at the begining!";
     } 
    else 
     {
      echo "Regex Pattern not matched!";
     }
    ?>

Result:

    Regex Pattern matches at the begining!

In the above example the string is checked for the pattern "^This" at the begining of the string "$string" , so it is matched.

Perl Example:

    #! C:\programfiles\perl\bin\perl
    print "content-type: text/html\n\n";
    if ("This is a (templateVar)" =~ m/^is/) 
      { print "The pattern found at the begining of string.!\n"; } 
    else 
      { print "The pattern not found!\n";}

Result:

    The pattern not found!

In the above example the string is matched for the pattern "/^is/", since it is not matched at the begining of the string its unmatched.

Regular Expression Meta-character Caret "^"