1. In a regular expression or pattern
match, the text which was matched within grouping parentheses
parentheses. 2. The part of the pattern which refers back to the
matched text. 3. By extension, anything which refers back to
something which has been seen or discussed before. "When you said
`she' just now, who were you backreferencing?"
Related:
grep /grep/ vi.
[from the qed/ed editor idiom g/re/p
where re stands for a regular expression, to Globally search
for the Regular Expression and Print the lines containing matches
to it, via Unix grep(1)] To rapidly scan a file or set
of files looking for a particular string or pattern (when browsing
through a large set of files, one may speak of `grepping
around')....
grep: /grep/ [from the qed/ed editor idiom g/re/p where
re stands for a regular expression, to Globally search for the
Regular Expression and Print the lines containing matches to it,
via {{UNIX}} `grep(1)'] vt....
