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

/
/
mg

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"(?!^\*)+?(?:^\W*\r*)(?<country>[\w]{0,1}[^\r\n])(?:[^\w*]+)(?<channel>[\w?,'\"\-_ ]*(?<![^\w?!])).*?(?<tag>\w*$)|(?<channel2>^[\w?,'\"\-_]+(?<![^\w?!]))[^\w\r\n\*\t\f\v]*(?<tag2>\w+$)?" test_str = ("*** 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") 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