Regular Expressions

Use EmEditor’s integrated regular expression support with Unicode to make find and replace operations a breeze. The Find, Replace, Find in Files, and Replace in Files functions each allow you to make nuanced and agile changes to your work using regular expressions.

Regular Expressions find text patterns within an open document or in multiple files. A regular expression is a pattern of text that consists of ordinary characters, or literals, (for example, letters a-z) and special characters, known as metacharacters. The pattern describes one or more strings to match when searching text. EmEditor regular expression syntax is based on the Perl regular expression syntax.

When using Regular Expressions, select the Find, Replace, Find in Files, or Replace in Files commands under the Search menu. In the dialog window, select Regular Expressions. Enter the Regular Expression to search for, and click Find Next. If using Replace or Replace in Files, also enter the text to replace the found text pattern with.

EmEditor supports backreferences for replacement strings. Backreferences are replaced with captured submatches.

Read the Help pages for information on regular expressions:

• EmEditor How to: Regular Expression Syntax
• EmEditor FAQ: Q. What are examples of regular expressions?