Teachers can use the following activity to ask students to help the "Mama animals" (uppercase letters) find their "babies" (lowercase letters). This game includes matching the uppercase mothers with their lowercase babies. See example > Show
This link provides a template for a printable "Superhero" upper- and lowercase letter match game. See example > This file includes uppercase and lowercase letters in a matching game that parents can use with their child at home. See example > This link provides templates for printing cards to use for writing uppercase and lowercase letters. See example > Letter formation: using sand, play dough, or flourThis link provides teachers with downloadable mats with the alphabet letters for helping children use play dough for learning letter formation. See example > Letter bingoBingo is a simple game that children enjoy and can be used to help them learn about the upper- and lowercase letters. This link allows teachers to print the letters and board needed to play letter bingo. See example > Letter stampsStamps are an excellent "hands-on" activity for helping students learn about the alphabet. The activity described in the link below provides teachers with some creative ideas for making letter stamps out of sponges. Teachers can use sponges and paint in a variety of ways to help children understand the shape and function of upper- and lowercase letters. See example > Letter recognition fluencyThis online document contains several activities that are helpful for building letter recognition fluency. Teachers can download materials needed and follow the instructions for each activity. There are also some ideas included for extending and adapting each activity to further enhance learning. Some examples are provided below. Download activities > Speedy Alphabet Arc: Teachers can download and print a copy of the alphabet "arc" and have students use letters to match the ones on the arc. Parents could use this idea at home with magnetic letters by placing the arc on the refrigerator and have the child match the letters. Using a timer and seeing how quickly the child can match the letters is optional. Glow Go: This activity includes the use of glow in the dark chalk and black construction paper. Students can work together taking turns using a flashlight and naming the letters. Hungry Letter Mouse: Teachers can utilize this activity for students to work on letter recognition in pairs using an eraser and dry erase marker. One student can use the eraser to be the mouse and the other student names the letter before the "mouse" eats it (i.e., erases it). Letter booksTeachers can use the downloadable materials form this website to create letter books in which each page contains one letter. The kids draw or cut pictures from magazines that start with the particular letter and glue them into their "book." See example >
The link listed below provides teachers with downloadable ESL flashcards. These are free and printable for use within the classroom. There are large sets for use with teaching letters and vocabulary, and smaller sets for language learning games. See example > This website provides printable color flashcards that are great for teaching upper- and lowercase letters. These cards are free and use the Zaner Bloser font which is very simplistic — ideal for teaching young children. See example > ">Alphabet cardsThe downloadable alphabet cards available from this link have various fonts to choose from, color picture cards to accompany the letters, and creative ideas for activities. See example > Race track alphabetThe website below offers teachers the ability to download letters of the alphabet in race-track format. Children can use toy cars to trace around the letters to help learn the formation. See example >
Tests for a match or extracts portions of a text string based on a pattern. DescriptionThe IsMatch function tests whether a text string matches a pattern that can comprise ordinary characters, predefined patterns, or a regular expression. The Match and MatchAll functions return what was matched, including sub-matches. Use IsMatch to validate what a user has typed in a Text input control. For example, you can confirm whether the user has entered a valid email address before the result is saved to your data source. If the entry doesn't match your criteria, add other controls that prompt the user to correct the entry. Use Match to extract the first text string that matches a pattern and MatchAll to extract all text strings that match. You can also extract sub-matches to parse complex strings. Match returns a record of information for the first match found, and MatchAll returns a table of records for every match found. The record or records contain:
These functions support MatchOptions. By default:
IsMatch returns true if the text string matches the pattern or false if it doesn't. Match returns blank if no match is found that can be tested with the IsBlank function. MatchAll returns an empty table if no match is found that can be tested with the IsEmpty function. If you're using MatchAll to split a text string, consider using the Split function, which is simpler to use and faster. PatternsThe key to using these functions is in describing the pattern to match. You describe the pattern in a text string as a combination of:
Combine these elements by using the string-concatenation operator &. For example, "abc" & Digit & "\s+" is a valid pattern that matches the characters "a", "b", and "c", followed by a digit from 0 to 9, followed by at least one whitespace character. Ordinary charactersThe simplest pattern is a sequence of ordinary characters to be matched exactly. For example, when used with the IsMatch function, the string "Hello" matches the pattern "Hello" exactly. No more and no less. The string "hello!" doesn't match the pattern because of the exclamation point on the end and because the case is wrong for the letter "h". (See MatchOptions for ways to modify this behavior.) In the pattern language, certain characters are reserved for special purposes. To use these characters, either prefix the character with a \ (backslash) to indicate that the character should be taken literally, or use one of the predefined patterns described later in this topic. This table lists the special characters:
For example, you can match "Hello?" by using the pattern "Hello\?" with a backslash before the question mark. Predefined patternsPredefined patterns provide a simple way to match either one of a set of characters or a sequence of multiple characters. Use the string-concatenation operator & to combine your own text strings with members of the Match enum:
For example, the pattern "A" & MultipleDigits will match the letter "A" followed by one or more digits. Regular expressionsThe pattern that these functions use is a regular expression. The ordinary characters and predefined patterns that are described earlier in this topic help build regular expressions. Regular expressions are very powerful, available in many programming languages, and used for a wide variety of purposes. They can also often look like a random sequence of punctuation marks. This article doesn't describe all aspects of regular expressions, but a wealth of information, tutorials, and tools are available on the web. Regular expressions come in different dialects, and Power Apps uses a variant of the JavaScript dialect. See regular-expression syntax for an introduction to the syntax. Named sub-matches (sometimes called named capture groups) are supported:
In the Match enum table earlier in this topic, each enum appears in the same row as its corresponding regular expression. Match optionsYou can modify the behavior of these functions by specifying one or more options, which you can combine by using the string- concatenation operator (&).
Using MatchAll is equivalent to using the standard "g" modifier for regular expressions. SyntaxIsMatch( Text, Pattern [, Options ] )
Match( Text, Pattern [, Options ] )
MatchAll( Text, Pattern [, Options ] )
IsMatch examplesOrdinary charactersImagine that your app contains a Text input control named TextInput1. The user enters values into this control to be stored in a database. The user types Hello world into TextInput1.
Predefined patterns
Regular expressions
Match and MatchAll examples
Let's drill into that last example. If you wanted to convert this string to a date/time value using the Time function, you must pass in the named sub-matches individually. To do this, you can use the With function operating on the record that Match returns: For these examples, add a Button control, set its OnSelect property to this formula, and then select the button: Set( pangram, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." )
To see the results of MatchAll in a gallery:
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