Greedy Quantifiers

EXPRESSION

DESCRIPTION

R?

Matches R, once or not at all

R*

Matches R, zero or more times

R+

Matches R, one or more times

R{n}

Matches R, exactly n times

R{n,}

Matches R, at least n times

R{n,m}

Matches R, at least n but no more than m times

R is a regular expression.

Trend Micro does not recommend using ".*" in a regular expression. ".*" matches any length of letters and the large number of matches may increase memory usage and affect performance.

For example:

If the content is 123456abc, the regular expression ".*abc" match results are:

  • 12345abc

  • 23455abc

  • 3456abc

  • 456abc

  • 56abc

  • 6abc

  • abc

In this example, replace ".*abc" with "abc" to prevent excessive use of resources.

Parent topic: About Regular Expressions