Named capture groups

Syntax#

• Build a named capture group (X being the pattern you want to capture):

  (?‘name’X) (?X) (?PX)

• Reference a named capture group:

  ${name} \{name} g\{name}

Remarks#

Python and Java don’t allow multiple groups to use the same name.

What a named capture group looks like

Given the flavors, the named capture group may looks like this:

(?'name'X)
(?<name>X)
(?P<name>X)

With X being the pattern you want to capture. Let’s consider the following string:

Once upon a time there was a pretty little girl…

Once upon a time there was a unicorn with an hat…

Once upon a time there was a boat with a pirate flag…

In which I want to capture the subject (in italic) of every lines. I’ll use the following expression .* was a (?<subject>[\w ]+)[.]{3}.

The matching result will hold:

MATCH 1
subject    [29-47]    `pretty little girl`
MATCH 2
subject    [80-99]    `unicorn with an hat`
MATCH 3
subject    [132-155]    `boat with a pirate flag`

Reference a named capture group

As you may (or not) know, you can reference a capture group with:

$1

1 being the group number.

In the same way, you can reference a named capture group with:

${name}
\{name}
g\{name}

Let’s take the preceding example and replace the matches with

The hero of the story is a ${subject}.

The result we will obtain is:

The hero of the story is a pretty little girl. 
The hero of the story is a unicorn with an hat. 
The hero of the story is a boat with a pirate flag.