Not exactly, they are treated as directives to a regular expression only when they are in a pattern that is [a-z ect.]{n,m}, or in other words as a "{quantifier}" for a "[character class]". They are not in and of themselves reserved, although I'd be tempted to avoid them. Given that, they are also allowed in Windows paths.balala wrote:Yes, probably ">" and "<" are good ideas.
About the reserved characters, are the "{" and "}" also reserved, beside those listed by you?
These characters are not allowed in Windows folder or file names:
< > : " / \ | ? *
These are reserved characters in regular expression:
[ \ ^ $ . | ? * + ( )
So if we line up and only consider characters that are both always treated as a literal in regular expression and not allowed in Windows folder or file names, we are left with:
<
>
:
"
/
However, while you can't create a folder or file with a "/" in it, it is allowed as the separator in a path in Windows when you "use" it to reference a path, so I'd be tempted to stay away from that. I'd stay away from : and ", as those might confuse the Substitute option itself, or at least make it hard to read. That leaves < and >. Those are not allowed in Windows paths, and have no meaning whatsoever in regular expression or the Substitute option.