'\" '\" Copyright (c) 1993 The Regents of the University of California. '\" Copyright (c) 1994-1996 Sun Microsystems, Inc. '\" '\" See the file "license.terms" for information on usage and redistribution '\" of this file, and for a DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES. '\" '\" RCS: @(#) $Id: regsub.n,v 1.2 2001/09/14 01:42:26 zlaski Exp $ '\" .so man.macros .TH regsub n 7.4 Tcl "Tcl Built-In Commands" .BS '\" Note: do not modify the .SH NAME line immediately below! .SH NAME regsub \- Perform substitutions based on regular expression pattern matching .SH SYNOPSIS \fBregsub \fR?\fIswitches\fR? \fIexp string subSpec varName\fR .BE .SH DESCRIPTION .PP This command matches the regular expression \fIexp\fR against \fIstring\fR, and it copies \fIstring\fR to the variable whose name is given by \fIvarName\fR. If there is a match, then while copying \fIstring\fR to \fIvarName\fR the portion of \fIstring\fR that matched \fIexp\fR is replaced with \fIsubSpec\fR. If \fIsubSpec\fR contains a ``&'' or ``\e0'', then it is replaced in the substitution with the portion of \fIstring\fR that matched \fIexp\fR. If \fIsubSpec\fR contains a ``\e\fIn\fR'', where \fIn\fR is a digit between 1 and 9, then it is replaced in the substitution with the portion of \fIstring\fR that matched the \fIn\fR-th parenthesized subexpression of \fIexp\fR. Additional backslashes may be used in \fIsubSpec\fR to prevent special interpretation of ``&'' or ``\e0'' or ``\e\fIn\fR'' or backslash. The use of backslashes in \fIsubSpec\fR tends to interact badly with the Tcl parser's use of backslashes, so it's generally safest to enclose \fIsubSpec\fR in braces if it includes backslashes. .LP If the initial arguments to \fBregexp\fR start with \fB\-\fR then they are treated as switches. The following switches are currently supported: .TP 10 \fB\-all\fR All ranges in \fIstring\fR that match \fIexp\fR are found and substitution is performed for each of these ranges. Without this switch only the first matching range is found and substituted. If \fB\-all\fR is specified, then ``&'' and ``\e\fIn\fR'' sequences are handled for each substitution using the information from the corresponding match. .TP 10 \fB\-nocase\fR Upper-case characters in \fIstring\fR will be converted to lower-case before matching against \fIexp\fR; however, substitutions specified by \fIsubSpec\fR use the original unconverted form of \fIstring\fR. .TP 10 \fB\-\|\-\fR Marks the end of switches. The argument following this one will be treated as \fIexp\fR even if it starts with a \fB\-\fR. .PP The command returns a count of the number of matching ranges that were found and replaced. See the manual entry for \fBregexp\fR for details on the interpretation of regular expressions. .SH KEYWORDS match, pattern, regular expression, substitute