Pattern expressions and pattern automata

We define the pattern expressions as an extension of both regular expressions and patterns. We prove several properties of the new family of languages, similar to those of extended regex languages [Câmpeanu et al., Int. J. Found. Comput. Sci. 14 (6) (2003) 1007–1018]. We also define an automata system that recognizes these languages. Differences between regex and pattern expressions are also discussed.