Tasker: Pattern Matching

Pattern Matching

What's Pattern Matching ?

With Pattern Matching, you specify a pattern which tells Tasker what text you wish to match. For instance, if you want to match any telephone number starting with 0135, you can specify the match 0135*. * is a special character which matches any number of any character.

Where's It Used ?

Matching is used in the following places:

in the If condition of an action, when the ~ (match) or !~ (not match) operators are specified.
in text paremeters of State and Event contexts
some other places :-)

Matching Rules

if a pattern is left blank, it will match against anything
if it is not blank it must match the whole target text
/ means 'or', it divides up multiple possible matches
a * will match any number of any character. It's not possible to specifically match a * character.
a + will match one or more of any character. It's not possible to specifically match a + character.
matching is case-insensitive (magic will match with MagiC) unless the pattern contains an upper-case letter e.g. Magic* will not match against magically, but it will match against Magic Roundabout
a ! at the very start of a match means not e.g. !*Magic*/*Yellow* matches anything not containing the words Magic or Yellow
it is not possible to specifically match a ! character at the start of a target (but you could use *!

Examples

help matches help but not helper.
help* matches helper
*the* matches the (anywhere)
123+ matches 123 and minimally one more character
+ matches anything with at least one character (non-empty)
the*way matches the other way and the first way, amongst others
Help/*shell matchs Help or anything ending with shell, case-sensitively

Caller Matching

Caller matching (some events and states e.g. Incoming Call) is handled slightly differently.

C:ANY matches the telephone number of any contact
C:FAV matches the telephone number of any favourite (starred) contact
Otherwise: otherwise a match is attempted using the general matching rules against both the caller phone number and the associated contact's name (if there is one).

Examples:

!C:ANY matches a number not belonging to a contact
077*/Geoff* matches a number starting with 077 or belonging to a contact whose names starts with Geoff
C:FAV/0123456789

0123456789