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Regular Expressions

Example 1. Syntax
(<subject> =~ /<pattern>/)
(<subject> =~ /<pattern>/[imsux])

(<subject> !~ /<pattern>/)
(<subject> !~ /<pattern>/[imsux])

Matching

The regular expression operators perform regular expression matching on the data. The <subject> field can be an attribute reference or data, as with the other comparison operators. The /<pattern>/ field must be a valid regular expression.

The =~ operator evaluates to true when data matches the /<pattern>/. Otherwise, it evaluates to false.

The !~ operator evaluates to true when data does not match the /<pattern>/. Otherwise, it evaluates to true.

The regular expression comparison is performed on the string representation of the left side of the comparison. That is, if the left side is an integer, the regular expression will behave as if the value 0 was the literal string "0". Similarly, if the left side is an &Attribute-Name, then the regular expression will behave as if the attribute was printed to a string, and the match was performed on the resulting string.

Example 2. Checking if the User-Name attribute contains a realm of example.com
if (&User-Name =~ /@example\.com$/) {
    ...
}

Dialects

The syntax of the regular expression is defined by the regular expression library available on the local system.

FreeRADIUS currently supports:

Use the output of radiusd -Xxv to determine which regular expression library is in use.

...
Debug :   regex-pcre               : no
Debug :   regex-pcre2              : yes
Debug :   regex-posix              : no
Debug :   regex-posix-extended     : no
Debug :   regex-binsafe            : yes
...
Debug :   pcre2                    : 10.33 (2019-04-16) - retrieved at build time

Depending on the regular expression library or libc implementation the server was built against, the pattern matching function available may not be binary safe (see regex-binsafe in the output of radiusd -Xxv).

If a binary safe regex match function is not available, and a match is attempted against a subject that contains one or more NUL ('\0') bytes, the match will be aborted, any condition that uses the result will evaluate to false, and a warning will be emitted.

Flags

The regular expression /<pattern>/ may be followed by one or more flag characters. Again, which flags are available depends on the regular expression library the server was built with. Multiple flags may be specified per /pattern/.

Table 1. Flags and their uses
Flag Character Available with Effect

i

All

Enable case-insensitive matching.

m

All

'^' and '$' match newlines within the subject.

s

libpcre[2]

'.' matches anything, including newlines.

u

libpcre[2]

Treats subjects as UTF8. Invalid UTF8 sequences will result in the match failing.

x

libpcre[2]

Allows comments in expressions by ignoring whitespace, and text between '#' and the next newline character.

Subcapture groups

When the =~ or !~ operators are used, then parentheses in the regular expression will sub capture groups, which contain part of the subject string.

The special expansion %{0} expands to the portion of the subject that matched. The expansions
%{1}..%{32} expand to the contents of any subcapture groups.

When using libpcre[2], named capture groups may also be accessed using the built-in expansion
%regex(<named capture group>).

Please see the xlat documentation for more information on regular expression matching.

Example 3. Extracting the 'user' portion of a realm qualified string
if (&User-Name =~ /^(.*)@example\.com$/) {
    &reply += {
        Reply-Message = "Hello %{1}"
    }
}

Pre-Compiled vs Runtime Compiled

When the server starts any regular expressions comparisons it finds will be pre-compiled, and if support is available, JIT’d (converted to machine code) to ensure fast execution.

If a pattern contains a dynamic expansion, the pattern cannot be compiled on startup, and will be compiled at runtime each time the expression is evaluated. The server will also turn off JITing for runtime compiled expressions, as the overhead is greater than the time that would be saved during evaluation.

Example 4. A runtime compiled regular expression
if (&User-Name =~ /^@%{Tmp-String-0}$/) {
    ...
}

To ensure optimal performance you should limit the number of patterns containing dynamic expansions, and if using PCRE, combine multiple expressions operating on the same subject into a single expression using the PCRE alternation '|' operator.

Example 5. Using multiple dynamic expansions and the PCRE alternation operator
if (&User-Name =~ /^@(%{Tmp-String-0}|%{Tmp-String-1})$/) {
    ...
}