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Regular Expression

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. Match single character except newline.
x* Match zero or more x.
[xyz] Match a character from x, y or z.
[^xyz] Match any single character except x, y, or z.
[a-zA-Z0-9] Match a character from a to z, A to Z, or 0 to 9 inclusive.
^x Match x at beginning of the line.
x$ Match x at end of the line.
x\{2,4\} Match 2 to 4 x inclusive.
x+ Match one or more x.
x? Match zero or one x.
x|y Match either x or y.
\ Escapes the special character e.g. \t => TAB, \n => newline.
() Groups regular expressions e.g. (x|y)+.

Reference: UNIX Power Tools: sed & awk by Dale Dougherty