Help talk:Searching/Regex

Is there a way to use Backreference (e.g. (.)\1 )? Uziel302 (talk) 20:21, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

:{{Re|Uziel302}} No, that's not supported; \1 just matches a literal "1". For example, [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?cirrusUserTesting=control&sort=relevance&search=intitle%3A%2F%28A%29%5C1+road%2F&title=Special:Search&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&advancedSearch-current=%7B%7D&ns0=1&ns10=1 try this search]. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:09, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

::John of Reading, that's why I asked, and couldn't find on which level it is, mediawiki/elastic/lucene. Uziel302 (talk) 12:35, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

::{{hidden ping|John of Reading|Uziel302}} Me would like to see reference for the no-support status (it may be supported with a different syntax), rather than another non-working example, too. —Mykhal (talk) 10:03, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

:::{{Re|Mykhal}} I'm not clear on the difference between mediawiki/elastic/lucene. Perhaps ask at WP:VPT to find someone who knows their way around the source code. I think that's the only possible reference for something not being supported. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:18, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

{{tq|Dot . will match a newline, or any character in the targeted position}}^[1]

Does it really? It doesn't seem to be doing it here. For instance, {{code|\{{!}}-.*\{{!}}}} doesn't match the beginning of table of rows. Am I doing it wrong? — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 03:58, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

There is a text on the page: {{tq|Regex experts should note that ^ does not mean "beginning of text" and $ does not mean "end of text." Searching from the beginning or end of a Wikipedia page is not generally useful.}}

However, searching from the beginning or end of a title is useful. Can you please implement these characters for the title? Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:41, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

:I agree, they are indeed useful. By the way, in case you aren't aware, WP:PetScan supports the regex metacharacters ^ and $; see this discussion for examples. --JAAqqO (talk) 19:28, 14 December 2023 (UTC)