e, the pattern</P>

<P>The quick brown fox</P>

<P>matches a portion of a subject string that is identical to itself. The power of regular expressions comes from the ability to include alternatives and repetitions in the pattern. These are encoded in the pattern by the use of <B>meta-characters</B>, which do not stand for themselves but instead are interpreted in some special way.</P>

<P>There are two different sets of meta-characters: those that are recognised anywhere in the pattern except within s