# Already programmed patterns in regular expressions in logstash

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/already-programmed-patterns-in-regular-expressions-in-logstash/84223>\
**Category:** Logstash\
**Created:** [May 2, 2017, 8:46am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/already-programmed-patterns-in-regular-expressions-in-logstash/84223 "2017-05-02T08:46:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Darya\_Semenova](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Darya\_Semenova](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Darya_Semenova)\
**Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 8:46am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/already-programmed-patterns-in-regular-expressions-in-logstash/84223/1 "2017-05-02T08:46:24Z")

</div>

Hello, I'd like to know if it is possible to insert patterns that were previously written in new regular expressions.

For example, will the code like that be possible when implementing my own patterns?

```
EXPBEGIN (([A-Za-z0-9]{0,20})(\-)?([A-Za-z0-9]{0,20})(\.[A-Za-z0-9]{0,20})?(\,)*([A-Za-z0-9]{0,20}(\-?[A-Za-z0-9]{0,20})*)(\.[A-Za-z0-9]{0,20})?)+
EXP_1 ([a-z]{5,5})\s\-([A-Za-z])\s([a-z]{4,4})\s\-([A-Za-z])\s(?:%{EXPBEGIN})
EXP_2 (\-([A-Za-z]\s(?:%{EXPBEGIN})\s[a-z]{5,5})\s\-([A-Za-z])\s([a-z]{4,4}))
```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Nico-DF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Nico-DF](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Nico-DF)\
**Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 9:39am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/already-programmed-patterns-in-regular-expressions-in-logstash/84223/2 "2017-05-02T09:39:04Z")

</div>

Normally it is.

I've already done something similar:  
F\_TIMESTAMP %{YEAR:year}%{MONTHNUM:month}%{MONTHDAY:monthday}\s\*%{TIME:time}\s\*%{ISO8601\_TIMEZONE:timezone}

(reusing already-defined patterns)  
And if you check this: [http://grokdebug.herokuapp.com/patterns#](http://grokdebug.herokuapp.com/patterns#)  
for any pattern, you'll see that you can reuse previously defined patterns (and imho, it's recommended)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Darya\_Semenova](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Darya\_Semenova](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Darya_Semenova)\
**Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 9:42am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/already-programmed-patterns-in-regular-expressions-in-logstash/84223/3 "2017-05-02T09:42:10Z")

</div>

Ok, thank you very much!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [May 30, 2017, 9:53am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/already-programmed-patterns-in-regular-expressions-in-logstash/84223/4 "2017-05-30T09:53:12Z")

</div>

Closed on May 30, 2017, 9:53am UTC

This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.