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 = '/PC\D*((([\dA-Z]{5})-){4}\g<3>)/'; $str = 'PC: WW533-S5T3B-53JJB-JTBT3-WZRBH PS3: WW533-S5T3C-39JKB-STCT3-WZRRS XBOX: WW533-S5T6F-65RJF-KXBT3-WZRW9 PC: CCCBB-X5JTB-5BB33-TJ3BJ-SK3KR PS3: CCCBB-X5JTC-3HB53-ZJ5BJ-SK3ST XBOX: CCCBB-X5JXF-6CF36-WR3BJ-SK3XW PC: 5CKBB-K53BJ-CJTTT-JTJ3B-BHCSJ PS3: 5CKBB-K53BK-BSTWT-STK3B-BHCTZ XBOX: 5CKBB-K53FR-FKXTX-KXJ3B-BHCFW PC: 5WWBJ-TWBJJ-KT3JB-TJBBB-CJ5KJ PS3: 5WWBJ-TWBJK-JZ3KB-ZJCBB-CJ555 XBOX: 5WWBJ-TWBRR-RW6JF-WRBBB-CJ5T9 BL: TPS 1 GK: PS3: WCWBT-S3TTK-BSJK3-HT5TB-TWR9W WinPC/Mac/Linux: WCWBT-S3TTJ-CJJJ3-BT3TB-TWRWZ X360: WCWBT-S3TXR-FKRJ6-CX3TB-TWR3R BL: TPS 1 GK: PS3: C5KTB-RTJ35-B93WT-HBKBB-WZWBX WinPC/Mac/Linux: C5KTB-RTJ33-C33TT-BBJBB-WZWJX X360: C5KTB-RTJ66-F56TX-CFJBB-WZWX5 BL: TPS 1 GK: PS3: C5CJB-WTT3W-TSJCT-ST5JJ-CKJKX WinPC/Mac/Linux: C5CJB-WTT3T-WJJBT-JT3JJ-CKJZ3 X360: C5CJB-WTT6X-XKRBX-KX3JJ-CKJZX Nov 13 The Pre-Sequel: PS3: C5CTT-3JJJK-B9JWJ-S35BJ-SZ99H WinPC/Mac/Linux: C5CTT-3JJJJ-C3JTJ-J33BJ-SZ9SK X360: C5CTT-3JJRR-F5RTR-K63BJ-SZ9KW BL:TPS GK: PS3: WW533-S5T3C-39JKB-STCT3-WZRRS WinPC/Mac/Linux: WW533-S5T3B-53JJB-JTBT3-WZRBH X360: WW533-S5T6F-65RJF-KXBT3-WZRW9'; preg_match_all($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