| Meta-Character | Matches |
| \\ | A single backslash |
| \0n | An octal value describing a character, where n is a number such that 0 <= n <= 7 |
| \0mnn | The character with octal value 0mnn (0 <= m <= 3, 0 <= n <= 7) |
| \0nn | The character with octal value 0nn (0 <= n <= 7) |
| \0xhh | The character with hexadecimal value hh (where 0 <= h <= F) |
| \uhhhh | The character with hexadecimal value hhhh (where 0 <= h <= F) |
| \t | A tab (character '\u0009') |
| \n | A newline (linefeed) ('\u000A') |
| \r | A carriage-return ('\u000D') |
| \f | A form-feed ('\u000C') |
| \a | A bell/beep character ('\u0007') |
| \e | An escape character ('\u001B') |
| \cx | The control character corresponding to x, such as \cc is control-c |
| . | Any single character |
| 8.1.Introduction | ||||
| 8.1.1. | Meta-characters predefined to match specific characters. | |||
| 8.1.2. | Meta-characters to match against certain string boundaries. | |||
| 8.1.3. | Regular expression languages also have character classes. | |||
| 8.1.4. | POSIX character classes and Java character classes | |||
| 8.1.5. | Java Character Class | |||
| 8.1.6. | Match a particular character a specified number of times. | |||
| 8.1.7. | Read regular expression from console | |||
| 8.1.8. | Regex Test Harness | |||
| 8.1.9. | Match Java source file and file and class name | |||
| 8.1.10. | Finding all words that start with an 'a' | |||
| 8.1.11. | Simple validation using the Pattern and Matcher objects | |||
| 8.1.12. | A possessive qualifier | |||
| 8.1.13. | Find the starting point of the second 'Bond' | |||
| 8.1.14. | A negative look ahead | |||
| 8.1.15. | A negative behind ahead | |||
| 8.1.16. | A positive look ahead | |||
| 8.1.17. | Pattern helper | |||
| 8.1.18. | Escapes characters that have special meaning to regular expressions | |||