Notepad++ explicit quantifier notation

Question

I've been playing around with the Notepad++ regular expression engine, but there's something I can't make work, it's the explicit quantifier notation.

I've seen some other posts here where the following syntax is used : (expr){1,2}

However, when I use it in a test as simple as k{1,1} where the text to search is k : there is no match. I tried a lot of syntax's : {1,}, {1}, etc. Am I missing something here ?

Please excuse my bad english, and thanks for your answers !

Answer 1

Starting with version 6.0, Notepad++ supports PCRE (source). Quantifiers will work as expected in these versions.

The regex engine of Notepad++ 5.9.8 and lower does not support quantifiers (source).

You can, however, use the following quantifiers:

• k*, which is equivalent to k{0,}.
• k+, which is equivalent to k{1,}.
• k?, which is equivalent to k{0,1}.

If you want other quantifiers, you can combine the above methods.

Examples:

• kkk+ emulates k{3,}
• kkkk?k? emulates k{3,5}

Answer 2

Notepad++'s regular expression system does not appear to support that feature. They do support k+ and k*.