|}

Parentheses can be used to create bracketed regular expressions. The parentheses group the regular expression inside. The parentheses are not matched, only what is inside. Grouping offers alteration/choice represented by the pipe (|). When a grouped expression is followed by a quantifier such as the asterisk, the quantifier applies to the entire group Examples of grouping with and without alteration are:

<blockquote><code>grep</code> requires the <code>-E</code> option to enable grouping

</blockquote>

= Search and Replace in vi =