Regular Expressions 101

Save & Share

Flavor

  • PCRE2 (PHP >=7.3)
  • PCRE (PHP <7.3)
  • ECMAScript (JavaScript)
  • Python
  • Golang
  • Java 8
  • .NET 7.0 (C#)
  • Rust
  • Regex Flavor Guide

Function

  • Match
  • Substitution
  • List
  • Unit Tests

Tools

Sponsors
There are currently no sponsors. Become a sponsor today!
An explanation of your regex will be automatically generated as you type.
Detailed match information will be displayed here automatically.
  • All Tokens
  • Common Tokens
  • General Tokens
  • Anchors
  • Meta Sequences
  • Quantifiers
  • Group Constructs
  • Character Classes
  • Flags/Modifiers
  • Substitution
  • A single character of: a, b or c
    [abc]
  • A character except: a, b or c
    [^abc]
  • A character in the range: a-z
    [a-z]
  • A character not in the range: a-z
    [^a-z]
  • A character in the range: a-z or A-Z
    [a-zA-Z]
  • Any single character
    .
  • Alternate - match either a or b
    a|b
  • Any whitespace character
    \s
  • Any non-whitespace character
    \S
  • Any digit
    \d
  • Any non-digit
    \D
  • Any word character
    \w
  • Any non-word character
    \W
  • Non-capturing group
    (?:...)
  • Capturing group
    (...)
  • Zero or one of a
    a?
  • Zero or more of a
    a*
  • One or more of a
    a+
  • Exactly 3 of a
    a{3}
  • 3 or more of a
    a{3,}
  • Between 3 and 6 of a
    a{3,6}
  • Start of string
    ^
  • End of string
    $
  • A word boundary
    \b
  • Non-word boundary
    \B

Regular Expression
No Match

/
/
gm

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

# coding=utf8 # the above tag defines encoding for this document and is for Python 2.x compatibility import re regex = r"^[^\d]?(?:(\d\d)[^\d]?(\d\d)[^\d]?(\d\d)(\.[\d\w]{1,}){0,1})(.*)$" test_str = ("123456.123abc\n" "00 24 13.13456789 Scopes of Bids (Multiple Contracts) \n" "00 24 13.16 Scopes of Bids (Multiple-Prime Contract) \n" "00 00 00 Procurement and Contracting Requirements \n" "00 01 01 Project Title Page \n" "00 01 05 Certifications Page \n" "00 01 07 Seals Page \n" "00 01 10 Table of Contents \n" "00 01 15 List of Drawing Sheets \n" "00 01 20 List of Schedules \n" "00 10 00 Solicitation \n" "00 11 00 Advertisements and Invitations \n" "00 11 13 Advertisement for Bids \n" "00 11 16 Invitation to Bid \n" "00 11 19 Request for Proposal \n" "00 11 53 Request for Qualifications \n" "00 20 00 Instructions for Procurement \n" "00 21 00 Instructions \n" "00 21 13 Instructions to Bidders \n" "00 21 16 Instructions to Proposers \n" "00 22 00 Supplementary Instructions \n" "00 22 13 Supplementary Instructions to Bidders \n" "00 22 16 Supplementary Instructions to Proposers \n" "00 23 00 Procurement Definitions \n" "00 24 00 Procurement Scopes \n" "00 24 13 Scopes of Bids ") matches = re.finditer(regex, test_str, re.MULTILINE) for matchNum, match in enumerate(matches, start=1): print ("Match {matchNum} was found at {start}-{end}: {match}".format(matchNum = matchNum, start = match.start(), end = match.end(), match = match.group())) for groupNum in range(0, len(match.groups())): groupNum = groupNum + 1 print ("Group {groupNum} found at {start}-{end}: {group}".format(groupNum = groupNum, start = match.start(groupNum), end = match.end(groupNum), group = match.group(groupNum))) # Note: for Python 2.7 compatibility, use ur"" to prefix the regex and u"" to prefix the test string and substitution.

Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for Python, please visit: https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html