REGEX

Matches and extracts or optionally replaces text using regular expressions.

Syntax

REGEX( Text ; Expression [ ; [ Replacement ] [ ; Flags|Occurrence ] ] )

Text: A text or reference to a cell where the regular expression is to be applied.

Expression: A text representing the regular expression, using ICU regular expressions. If there is no match and Replacement is not given, #N/A is returned.

Replacement: Optional. The replacement text and references to capture groups. If there is no match, Text is returned unmodified.

Flags: Optional. "g" replaces all matches of Expression in Text, not extracted. If there is no match, Text is returned unmodified.

Occurrence: Optional. Number to indicate which match of Expression in Text is to be extracted or replaced. If there is no match and Replacement is not given, #N/A is returned. If there is no match and Replacement is given, Text is returned unmodified. If Occurrence is 0, Text is returned unmodified.

Example:

=REGEX("123456ABCDEF";"[:digit:]";"Z") returns "Z23456ABCDEF", where the first match of a digit is replaced by "Z".

=REGEX("123456ABCDEF";"[:digit:]";"Z";"g") returns "ZZZZZZABCDEF", where all digits were replaced by "Z".

=REGEX("123456ABCDEF";"[126]";"";"g") returns "345ABCDEF", where any occurrence of "1", "2" or "6" is replaced by the empty string, thus deleted.

=REGEX("axbxcxd";".x";;2) returns "bx", the second match of ".x".

=REGEX("axbxcxd";"(.)x";"$1y";2) returns "axbycxd", the second match of "(.)x" (i.e. "bx") replaced with the captured group of one character (i.e. "b") followed by "y".

Technical information

tip

This function is available since LibreOffice 6.2.


This function is not part of the Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) Version 1.3. Part 4: Recalculated Formula (OpenFormula) Format standard. The name space is

ORG.LIBREOFFICE.REGEX

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