rm(X;Y)

Returns a boolean value indicating whether a given string matches a standard regular expression. (Available as of version 12.33)

Syntax

rm(X;Y)

Input

Argument Type Description
X text The string on which to apply the function

A scalar value or the name of a column
Y text A regular expression with which to compare string X.

Return Value

Returns an integer value of 1 if X matches the regular expression Y. Otherwise, returns 0.

If X is N/A, the result is 0.

Sample Usage

value regular expression rm(value;regular expression)
'abcdefg' 'a(b|c|d)' 1
'abcdefg' 'A(b|c|d)' 0
'aefg' 'a(b|c|d)' 0

Example

In the "Monthly Statewide Seasonally Adjusted Unemployment Statistics" table (pub.fin.fred2.bls.smsa), you can find only those rows whose state abbreviations begin with the letter "N". To do this, create a computed column and apply the rm(X;Y) function to the state column, and specify "N?" as the pattern to match.

<base table="pub.fin.fred2.bls.smsa"/>
<willbe name="example" value="rm(state;'N?')" 
 label="States Beginning`With N"/>
<colord cols="state,example"/>

For those values in the state column that begin with "N", the result is 1. Otherwise, the result is 0.

Additional Information

  • rm(X;Y) is similar to sm(X;Y), except that in this function, Y is a regular expression, not a wildcard-containing pattern.
  • rm(X;Y) is equivalent to regex_count(Y;'pcre''first';X)>0.
  • This function does not work with Unicode (UTF-8) strings.
  • For a Unicode-compliant alternative, consider regex_match(X;L;Y;I).