List of all regex implementations?

Question

Is there a list of Regex implementations on the web, showing their differences / similarities?

For exaple, Emacs elisp Regex is different to JavaScript or Perl regex, not to mention all the different implementations used by different editor software,

e.g. VS2010 uses {} instead of () to group expressions for back references.

Once upon a time I could rely on a Regex conversion list in O'Reilly's Regex Pocket Quick Reference, but something online would be so much easier, and complete.

By the way, I am aware of (of course) http://www.regular-expressions.info/ which is good, but no where near complete.

I'll compile a list from the answers posted here, and anything else I can find.

Variations

General Variations

The differences in implementations are usually the way special characters {}()[]^$ are handled (escaping rules etc.), and occasionally substituted; the handling/availability of POSIX character classes e.g. [:digit:], and the use of options, e.g. g i etc.

(a work in progress, if you know any caveats, differences for these implementations please add them as an answer)

• ActionScript - uses ECMA style
• Delphi (.Net) - Uses .Net style. Delphi Win32 has no native regex, but PCRE wrappers are available.
• Emacs/ELisp - has 2 different contexts, escaping uses \\ in elisp, and \ in regexp-replace. Special chars (){}[] are escaped when using them for regex features, much like sed.
• Eclipse - Search uses Java style regex.
• GNU (Linux) - POSIX BRE / ERE
• Grep - POSIX BRE / ERE
• Groovy - Uses Java style.
• IntelliJ
• Java - Java style.
• JavaScript - uses ECMA style.
• NetBeans
• .NET - Uses the classes in System.Text.RegularExpressions
• Notepad++ - PCRE
• PCRE (C/C++) - Open source library, used by many third party languages and apps. (e.g. PHP, TCL, R etc.)
• Perl - Perl style
• PHP - POSIX ERE, PCRE, (PHP5's multibyte string module uses Oniguruma)
• POSIX - BRE (Basic Regex), ERE (Extended Regex)
• PowerShell - .Net style
• Python - Python style
• R - POSIX ERE/BRE, PCRE
• REALbasic - PCRE
• Ruby - Oniguruma
• Sed - special chars (){}[] are escaped when using them for regex features.
• Tcl - Three flavors, Tcl ARE (advanced regex), POSIX ERE, POSIX BRE.
• TextMate - Oniguruma
• Tera Term - Oniguruma
• VBScript - ECMA
• Visual Basic 6 - ECMA (when using Microsoft VBScript Regular Expressions 5.5 COM object)
• Visual Studio - Grouping braces are {} (more details to follow.)
• wxWidgets - Tcl ARE, POSIX BRE/ERE
• XML Schema - XML
• XQuery & XPath - Xpath

Additional references.

• Wikipedia's List of regular expression software
• Regex info's comparison of Regex flavors

Answer 1

I found this overview very useful when i get confused with the different variants.

Answer 2

There is a list of libraries, languages and applications supporting regular expressions on Wikipedia which includes a feature comparison table:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_regular_expression_engines

Answer 3

Take a look at the Regular Expression Flavor Comparison on Regular-Expressions.info. It contains at least the nowadays most important regular expression implementations and their characteristics.

Answer 4

http://www.regular-expressions.info is the closest thing I know to a comprehensive list (and even it is nowhere near complete). (This page in particular.)