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matches

The matches function in XQuery is used to determine whether a string matches a given regular expression pattern. This function is essential for pattern matching and text validation tasks.

Syntax

fn:matches(input, pattern, flags)

The following table describes the argument for this command:

Argument	Required/Optional	Description
input	Required	The input string to be tested against the pattern. If this argument is an empty sequence ( () ), it is treated as an empty string.
pattern	Required	A regular expression pattern against which the input string is matched. The pattern should be a valid regular expression according to the XML Schema definition.
flags	Optional	A string of flags that modify the matching behavior as follows: m : Multi-line mode, where the start and end of line anchors (^ and $) match the start and end of any line instead of the entire string. s : Single-line mode, where the dot (.) matches all characters, including line terminators. i : Case-insensitive matching.

Return Value

Returns

true

$input

matches the regular expression supplied as

$pattern

as influenced by the value of

$flags

, if present. Otherwise, returns

false

Examples

The following table lists some sample values and return values:

SAMPLE FUNCTION	OUTPUT
fn:matches('query', 'q')	true
fn:matches('query', 'ue')	true
fn:matches('query', '^qu')	true
fn:matches('query', 'qu$')	false
fn:matches('query', 'q.*')	true
fn:matches('query', '[a-z]{5}')	true
fn:matches((), 'q' )	false
fn:matches('query', '[qu')	Error FORX0002
fn:matches("Hello World", "World")	true
fn:matches("Hello World", "^World")	false
fn:matches("Hello World", "hello", "i")	true
fn:matches((), "^$")	true