Using Masks

Masks are often used in the options of Web Link Validator and in the profile settings to select a group of links, files or when you are searching for some text. Masks include regular characters and the following wildcards: '?' and '*'.

The '?' character stands for a single character, while the '*' character stands for zero or more characters. The mask http://example.com/page?.htm would include the following links:

http://example.com/page1.htm
http://example.com/page2.htm
http://example.com/pagex.htm
http://example.com/pageN.htm

The mask http://example.com/page??.htm would include the following links:

http://example.com/page01.htm
http://example.com/page02.htm
http://example.com/pageNN.htm

Using the '*' character instead of the '?' character expands the number of links matching the mask. page*.html matches all of the following:

http://example.com/page.htm
http://example.com/page1.htm
http://example.com/page012.htm
http://example.com/pageXYZ.htm

The mask http://example.com/* would include all links starting with 'http://example.com/', for example:

http://example.com/page.htm
http://example.com/directory/
http://example.com/directory/page.htm
http://example.com/cgi-bin/login.cgi

A mask like */example.com/* would include all links containing '/example.com/', for example:

http://example.com/page.htm
https://example.com/directory/
ftp://example.com/

Regular Expressions

Web Link Validator supports Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE).

Syntax:
[RE] pattern

More information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl_Compatible_Regular_Expressions