chickadee » agrep » pattern

Compiles a search pattern. The syntax for patterns is similar to that of the Unix shell. The following constructs are recognized:

?

match any single character

*

match any sequence of characters

[..]

character set: ranges are denoted with -, as in [a-z]; an initial ^, as in [^0-9], complements the set

&

conjunction (e.g. sweet&sour)

|

alternative (e.g. high|low)

(..)

grouping

\

escape special characters; the special characters are \?*[]&|().

The optional argument TRANSL is a character translation table.