Regular Expressions 101

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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

/
/
mg

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

import java.util.regex.Matcher; import java.util.regex.Pattern; public class Example { public static void main(String[] args) { final String regex = "(?!^\\*)+?(?:^\\W*\\r*)(?<country>[\\w]{0,1}[^\\r\\n])(?:[^\\w*]+)(?<channel>[\\w?,'\\\"\\-_ ]*(?<![^\\w?!])).*?(?<tag>\\w*$)|(?<channel2>^[\\w?,'\\\"\\-_]+(?<![^\\w?!]))[^\\w\\r\\n\\*\\t\\f\\v]*(?<tag2>\\w+$)?"; final String string = "*** jeo ****\n" + "UK -+- \"Channel Name' | HD\n" + "Channel | FHD\n" + "zeebo\n" + "BBC\n" + "US = LONG chanell NaME | FHD\n" + "US - SkySports | HD\n" + "ES | Chan-nel Name HD\n" + "IT| My long super channel Name | HD\n" + "ks lets sae my channel | hd\n" + "JS: My channel Name | HD\n" + "JS: Sky Cinema Action\n" + "UK: Sky Cinema Gold | FHD\n" + "JA: Some other channel :HD\n" + "UK: this channel name ||jdh\n" + "AH: does it work for all?? |HD\n" + "UJ: Dont call me dave\n" + "****** My service Provider\n" + "DE: Doesn't handle weird _String | FHD\n" + "UK: so howcanedo | HD\n" + "KD: 5g0fff9 98hf9 ?|FHD\n" + "UR: this is okay mostly | FHD\n" + "EE) but does it always work? | vip\n" + "****** My service Provider ****vip\n" + "re: hahahaahahaahahaha 32 hd | hd\n" + "jg: will it work | dd\n" + "ur: rte1 | FHD\n" + "IR: M-Y CHAN-NEL NAME |VIP\n" + "IR: MY CHANNEL NAME | FHD\n" + "le let me get this channel\" |FHD\n" + "UK MY CHANNNEL NAME | FHD\n" + "el haha get my name | jfh"; final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex, Pattern.MULTILINE); final Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(string); while (matcher.find()) { System.out.println("Full match: " + matcher.group(0)); for (int i = 1; i <= matcher.groupCount(); i++) { System.out.println("Group " + i + ": " + matcher.group(i)); } } } }

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 Java, please visit: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/regex/Pattern.html