---
title: "Catchpoint Regular Expressions"
slug: "catchpoint-regular-expressions"
updated: 2024-07-30T14:40:25Z
published: 2024-07-30T14:40:25Z
canonical: "docs.catchpoint.com/catchpoint-regular-expressions"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.catchpoint.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Catchpoint Regular Expressions

## Overview

Catchpoint uses Regular Expressions(regex or regexp) to search for data within strings. Regex is a special string that describes a search pattern to be applied to other text. Catchpoint follows the **.NET** syntax for regular expressions.

## Regex Characters

Regex contains a wide range of functions that allow for robust search patterns. Below are common regex characters and patterns used by Catchpoint users.

|           |                                 |                     |                                     |
|-----------|---------------------------------|---------------------|-------------------------------------|
| **Regex** | **Description**                 | **Example Pattern** | **Sample Match**                    |
| \d        | Digit                           | id="\d\d"           | id="23"                             |
| \s        | White space                     | Hello\sWorld        | Hello World                         |
| \D        | Anything not a digit            | \D\D\D1             | one1                                |
| .         | Any character except line break | a.c                 | abc                                 |
| \\.       | Period                          | .\\.com             | g.com                               |
| \\        | Escapes special characters      | \\\<title\\\>       | \<title\>                           |
| .\*       | Any number of characters        | .\*com              | google.com                          |
| .+        | At least one or more            | .+com               | yahoo.com                           |
| (..)      | Capturing Group                 | www\\.(.+)\\.com    | google (from string www.google.com) |

Please note that Catchpoint supports only one capture group at a time. In order to capture multiple patterns, using alternation ( \| ) in one capture group is encouraged. For example, (firstPattern \| secondPattern) could be used to capture firstPattern OR secondPattern.

Using the above regex options, powerful search patterns can be created. Here are common patterns used in Catchpoint tests:

| **Sample Pattern** | **Description**|
|---------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------|
| \<title\>(.\*)\</title\>                    | Capture any/all text between title tags            |
| set-cookie:(.\*)                            | Capture a cookie in a header               |
| User-Agent:(.\*)                            | Capture the user agent                     |
| .\*\\.google-analytics\\.com.\*             | Find anything coming from google-analytics |
| https://www.google.com/\\?gws_rd=ssl#q=(.+) | Capture search string from Google url      |
| Insight Key:(.\*)                           | Capture insight value after key.           |

 

* * *

:::(Warning) (Note)
Please do not use the expression "*" standalone in any "**Apply To**" field, instead if you want to match all the characters please use the  ".\*" expression. 
 :::

## See Also:

For more information regarding Regular Expressions, please see the [Regex Cheat](http://www.rexegg.com/regex-quickstart.html) sheet provided by rexegg.com.

[Regex101](https://regex101.com/){target="_blank"} is one of the popular tools for regex testing.