Splunk Search

Regular expression help and error (Regex: unmatched parentheses )

Michael_Schyma1
Contributor

The regular expression is correct according to RegExr, but i keep on getting this error

Regex: unmatched parentheses

I am not understanding why my regular expression is not working. Here is what i have in Splunk Search:

rex field=_raw "Member:\W+Security.ID:\W+TARD\\(?<member_added>\S+)"

I just dont see it for whatever reason. Thanks guys

Tags (1)
0 Karma
1 Solution

Rob
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

I take it you are trying to escape a backslash character. In that case you need to use 3 backslashes in the rex command like this:

rex field=_raw "Member:\W+Security.ID:\W+TARD\\\(?<member_added>\S+)"

View solution in original post

Rob
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

I take it you are trying to escape a backslash character. In that case you need to use 3 backslashes in the rex command like this:

rex field=_raw "Member:\W+Security.ID:\W+TARD\\\(?<member_added>\S+)"

raoul
Path Finder

This works, but why? Why does Splunk require three? By my logic I am escaping a backslash - one other backslash should do the trick...

Get Updates on the Splunk Community!

Accelerating Observability as Code with the Splunk AI Assistant

We’ve seen in previous posts what Observability as Code (OaC) is and how it’s now essential for managing ...

Integrating Splunk Search API and Quarto to Create Reproducible Investigation ...

 Splunk is More Than Just the Web Console For Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) practitioners, ...

Congratulations to the 2025-2026 SplunkTrust!

Hello, Splunk Community! We are beyond thrilled to announce our newest group of SplunkTrust members!  The ...