SYNOPSIS
regsub ?switches? exp string subSpecvarName
DESCRIPTION
This command matches the regular expression exp against string, and it copies string to the variable whose name is given by varName. (Regular expression matching is described in the re_syntax reference page.) If there is a match, then while copying string to varName the portion of string that matched exp is replaced with subSpec. If subSpec contains a & or , then it is replaced in the substitution with the portion of string that matched exp. If subSpec contains a \n, where n is a digit between 1 and 9, then it is replaced in the substitution with the portion of string that matched the n-th parenthesized subexpression of exp. Additional backslashes may be used in subSpec to prevent special interpretation of & or or \n or backslash. The use of backslashes in subSpec tends to interact badly with the Tcl parser's use of backslashes, so it's generally safest to enclose subSpec in braces if it includes backslashes.
If the initial arguments to regexp start with
-all -
All ranges in string that match exp are found and substitution is performed for each of these ranges. Without this switch only the first matching range is found and substituted. If
-all is specified, then & and \n sequences are handled for each substitution using the information from the corresponding match. -expanded -
Enables use of the expanded regular expression syntax where whitespace and comments are ignored. This is the same as specifying the (?x) embedded option.
-line -
Enables newline-sensitive matching. By default, newline is a completely ordinary character with no special meaning. With this flag, [^ bracket expressions and . never match newline, ^ matches an empty string after any newline in addition to its normal function, and $ matches an empty string before any newline in addition to its normal function. This flag is equivalent to specifying both
-linestop and-lineanchor , or the (?n) embedded option. -linestop -
Changes the behavior of [^ bracket expressions and . so that they stop at newlines. This is the same as specifying the (?p) embedded option.
-lineanchor -
Changes the behavior of ^ and $ (the anchors) so they match the beginning and end of a line respectively. This is the same as specifying the (?w) embedded option.
-nocase -
Upper-case characters in string will be converted to lower-case before matching against exp; however, substitutions specified by subSpec use the original unconverted form of string.
-start index-
Specifies a character index offset into the string to start matching the regular expression at. When using this switch, ^ will not match the beginning of the line, and \A will still match the start of the string at index. index will be constrained to the bounds of the input string.
-- -
Marks the end of switches. The argument following this one will be treated as exp even if it starts with a
- .
The command returns a count of the number of matching ranges that were found and replaced. See the reference page for regexp for details on the interpretation of regular expressions.
PORTABILITY
Windows 10. Windows Server 2016. Windows Server 2019. Windows 11. Windows Server 2022. Windows Server 2025.
AVAILABILITY
PTC MKS Toolkit for Power Users
PTC MKS Toolkit for System Administrators
PTC MKS Toolkit for Developers
PTC MKS Toolkit for Interoperability
PTC MKS Toolkit for Professional Developers
PTC MKS Toolkit for Enterprise Developers
PTC MKS Toolkit for Enterprise Developers 64-Bit Edition
PTC MKS Toolkit 10.5 Documentation Build 40.