Carets in Regular Expressions
^ only means "not the following" when inside and at the start of [], so [^...].
When it's inside [] but not at the start, it means the actual ^ character.
When it's escaped (\^), it also means the actual ^ character.
In all other cases it means start of the string / line (which one is language / setting dependent).
So in short:
-
[^abc]-> not a, b or c -
[ab^cd]-> a, b, ^ (character), c or d -
\^-> a^character - Anywhere else -> start of string / line.
So ^[b-d]t$ means:
- Start of line
- b/c/d character
- t character
- End of line