# Regular Expressions Usage in SV

**URL:** <https://verificationacademy.com/forums/t/regular-expressions-usage-in-sv/35349>\
**Category:** SystemVerilog\
**Tags:** SystemVerilog\
**Created:** [November 20, 2018, 11:21am UTC](https://verificationacademy.com/forums/t/regular-expressions-usage-in-sv/35349 "2018-11-20T11:21:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Anudeep\_J](https://verificationacademy.com/forums/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/c68b51/32.png) [@Anudeep\_J](https://verificationacademy.com/forums/u/Anudeep_J)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 11:21am UTC](https://verificationacademy.com/forums/t/regular-expressions-usage-in-sv/35349/1 "2018-11-20T11:21:19Z")

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Hi,

I want to evaluate a string s1 which might have either of two strings s2 or s3 or both using Regular expressions as shown

```verilog
s1 = "important";
s2 = "ant";
s3 = "port"

result = uvm_pkg::uvm_re_match("*(ant|port)*",s1);

```

In the above code, Iam getting runtime errors.  
**reporter [UVM/DPI/REGEX\_INV] uvm\_re\_match : invalid glob or regular expression:  
|Invalid preceding regular expression|**

Please help me out with proper code.

Thanks  
AJ

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dave\_59](https://verificationacademy.com/forums/user_avatar/verificationacademy.com/dave_59/32/4499_2.png) [@dave\_59](https://verificationacademy.com/forums/u/dave_59)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 4:29pm UTC](https://verificationacademy.com/forums/t/regular-expressions-usage-in-sv/35349/2 "2018-11-20T16:29:13Z")

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_In reply to [Anudeep J](https://verificationacademy.com/forums/t/regular-expressions-usage-in-sv/35349):_  
Use “(ant|port)” without the \*'s

A good site to debug regular expressions is [https://regex101.com](https://regex101.com)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Anudeep\_J](https://verificationacademy.com/forums/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/c68b51/32.png) [@Anudeep\_J](https://verificationacademy.com/forums/u/Anudeep_J)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2018, 6:12am UTC](https://verificationacademy.com/forums/t/regular-expressions-usage-in-sv/35349/3 "2018-11-21T06:12:40Z")

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_In reply to [dave\_59](https://verificationacademy.com/forums/t/regular-expressions-usage-in-sv/35349/2):_

Thanks for the reply Dave. It is working.