Basic characteristics of regular expressions

Last published : Sep 30, 2026
Following are notable characteristics of regular expressions as defined on the NetScaler appliance:
  • A regular expression always begins with the string “re” followed by a pair of delimiting characters (called delimiters) that enclose the regular expression that you want to use.
For example, re#\<regex_pattern\># uses the number sign (#) as a delimiter.
  • A regular expression cannot exceed 1499 characters.
  • Digit matching can be done by using the string \d (a backslash followed by d).
  • White space can be represented by using \s (a backslash followed by s).
  • A regular expression can contain white spaces.
Following are the differences between the NetScaler syntax and the PCRE syntax:
  • The NetScaler does not allow back references in regular expressions.
  • You should not use recursive regular expressions.
  • The dot meta-character also matches the newline character.
  • Unicode is not supported.
  • The operation SET_TEXT_MODE(IGNORECASE) overrides the (?i) internal option in the regular expression.