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 Foundation let pattern = #"^((?! xxxx-xx-xx)((19|20|x)[0-9x][0-9x])\-((02\-(-[1-9]|[1-2]\d|xx))|((04|06|09|11)\-(0[1-9]|[1-2]\d|30|xx))|((01|03|05|07|08|10|12|xx)\-(0[1-9]|[1-2]\d|30|31|xx)))((?! xx:xx:xx) ([0-1]\d|2[0-3]|xx):([0-5]\d|xx)(:([0-5]\d|xx)|))?)$"# let regex = try! NSRegularExpression(pattern: pattern, options: .anchorsMatchLines) let testString = #""" xxxx-xx-xx 2011-12-22 2014-10-11 2014-10-17 08:11:11 2014-10-10 xx:10:xx 2014-10-21 xx:xx 2014-10-01 10:xx:xx 2014-10-03 xx:10:xx 2014-10-14 xx:xx:10 2014-10-13 10:10:xx 2014-10-15 xx:10:10 2014-10-16 10:xx:10 2014-10-17 10:11:10 xxxx-xx-xx 10:11:10 2014-10-18 xx:xx:xx xxxx-xx-xx xx:xx:01 xxx-xx-xx xx:xx:01 xxx-xx-xx xx:xx:xx xxxx-xx-xx xx:xx:xx """# let stringRange = NSRange(location: 0, length: testString.utf16.count) let matches = regex.matches(in: testString, range: stringRange) var result: [[String]] = [] for match in matches { var groups: [String] = [] for rangeIndex in 1 ..< match.numberOfRanges { let nsRange = match.range(at: rangeIndex) guard !NSEqualRanges(nsRange, NSMakeRange(NSNotFound, 0)) else { continue } let string = (testString as NSString).substring(with: nsRange) groups.append(string) } if !groups.isEmpty { result.append(groups) } } print(result)

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 Swift 5.2, please visit: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/nsregularexpression