Regular Expressions 101

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  • Unit Tests (24)

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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

/
/
gmx

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

use strict; my $str = '<165>1 2003-08-24T05:14:15.000003-07:00 192.0.2.1 myproc 8710 - - %% It\'s time to make the do-nuts. <34>1 2003-10-11T22:14:15.003Z mymachine.example.com su - ID47 - BOM\'su root\' failed for lonvick on /dev/pts/8 <190>1 2003-10-11T22:14:15.003Z mymachine.example.com evntslog - ID47 [exampleSDID@32473 iut="3" eventSource="Application" eventID="10\\] 11"] BOMAn application event log entry..[ ] sadasd <25>1 2003-10-11T22:14:15.003Z mymachine.example.com evntslog - ID47 [exampleSDID@32473 iut="3" eventSource="Application" eventID="1011"][examplePriority@32473 class="high"] <1>12 - mymachine - - ID47 - asd asdaasd'; my $regex = qr/(?#regexp & naming based on RFC5424) ^<(?<priority>\d|\d{2}|1[1-8]\d|19[01])>(?<version>\d{1,2})\s (?<timestamp>-|(?<fullyear>[12]\d{3})-(?<month>0\d|[1][012])-(?<mday>[012]\d|3[01])T(?<hour>[01]\d|2[0-4]):(?<minute>[0-5]\d):(?<second>[0-5]\d|60)(?#60seconds can be used for leap year!)(?:\.(?<secfrac>\d{1,6}))?(?<numoffset>Z|[+-]\d{2}:\d{2})(?#=timezone))\s (?<hostname>[\S]{1,255})\s (?<appname>[\S]{1,48})\s (?<procid>[\S]{1,128})\s (?<msgid>[\S]{1,32})\s (?<structureddata>-|(?:\[.+?(?<!\\)\])+) (?:\s(?<msg>.+))?$/mxp; if ( $str =~ /$regex/g ) { print "Whole match is ${^MATCH} and its start/end positions can be obtained via \$-[0] and \$+[0]\n"; # print "Capture Group 1 is $1 and its start/end positions can be obtained via \$-[1] and \$+[1]\n"; # print "Capture Group 2 is $2 ... and so on\n"; } # ${^POSTMATCH} and ${^PREMATCH} are also available with the use of '/p' # Named capture groups can be called via $+{name}

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 Perl, please visit: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html