What are wildcards in regex?

What are wildcards in regex?

Wildcards in regex are special characters that represent one or more characters. For example, the dot (.) matches any single character.

Can you give me an example of using wildcards in a regex pattern?

Sure! The pattern 'a.b' will match 'aab', 'acb', or 'a1b', where the dot represents any character between 'a' and 'b'.

What about using wildcards with multiple characters?

For multiple characters, you can use the asterisk (*) or plus (+). For instance, 'a.*b' matches 'a123b' or 'ab', as it allows for any characters in between.

Are there any common mistakes to avoid when using wildcards?

Yes, a common mistake is not escaping special characters when you want to match them literally. For example, use '.' to match a dot instead of using it as a wildcard.