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

/
/
g

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

$re = '/(?<=Greg)(.*)(?=hits)/'; $str = ' Greg Wylde hits the penalty kick with his left foot to the lower left corner and scores!! Craig Slater hits the penalty kick with his right foot to the upper right corner and scores!! Aleksei Eremenko hits the penalty kick with his right foot to the lower left corner and scores!! Matty Taylor powers the penalty kick with his right foot to the lower right corner and scores!! The goalkeeper was nowhere near the shot. Craig Reid places the penalty kick with his right foot to the upper left corner and scores!! The goalkeeper guessed correctly but could not stop the shot. Robbie Simpson hits the penalty kick with his right foot to the lower right corner and the goalkeepper saves it! Chris Martin hits the penalty kick with his right foot to the lower right corner and scores!! Peter Vincenti hits the penalty kick with his right foot to the lower right corner and scores!! Michael Smith hits the penalty kick with his right foot to the lower right corner and the goalkeepper saves it! Marcus Tudgay hits the penalty kick with his right foot high through the middle and the goalkeepper saves it! Jack Redshaw hits the penalty kick with his right foot and hits the crossbar. What a missed chance! Adam Chapman hits the penalty kick with his right foot to the lower right corner and scores!! Adam Rooney hits the penalty kick with his right foot to the lower left corner and scores!! Eoin Doyle hits the penalty kick with his right foot to the lower right corner and scores!! Eidur Gudjohnsen hits the penalty kick with his right foot to the upper left corner and scores!! Rodolph Austin hits the penalty kick with his right foot to the lower right corner and scores!! Aleksei Eremenko hits the penalty kick with his right foot to the lower left corner and scores!! Conor Hourihane hits the penalty kick with his left foot to the lower left corner and scores!! Ian Henderson hits the penalty kick with his right foot and hits the crossbar. What a missed chance! Izale McLeod hits the penalty kick with his right foot to the lower right corner and scores!! Nicholas Ajose hits the penalty kick with his right foot to the lower left corner and scores!! Patrick Madden hits the penalty kick with his right foot to the lower left corner and scores!! Simon Walton hits the penalty kick with his right foot to the lower left corner and scores!! Will Evans powers the penalty kick with his right foot and sends it over the crossbar. What a missed chance! Jack Midson powers the penalty kick with his right foot to the lower right corner and the goalkeepper saves it! Brian Howard places the penalty kick with his left foot low through the middle and the goalkeepper saves it! Andrew Williams hits the penalty kick with his right foot to the lower right corner and scores!!'; preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0); // Print the entire match result var_dump($matches);

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 PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php