Symbol  | Character  | Meaning  | 
^  | Caret  | Matches the beginning of the input string. When used at the beginning of a string of characters, it negates a pattern match.  | 
$  | Dollar sign  | Matches the end of the input string.  | 
.  | Period  | Matches a single character (including white spaces).  | 
*  | Asterisk  | Matches none or more sequences of a pattern.  | 
+  | Plus sign  | Matches one or more sequences of a pattern.  | 
?  | Question mark  | Matches none or one occurrence of a pattern.  | 
_  | Underscore  | Matches spaces, commas, braces, parenthesis, or the beginning and end of an input string.  | 
[]  | Brackets  | A range of single-characters.  | 
-  | Hyphen  | Separates the end points of a range.  |