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

r"
"
gx

Test String

Code Generator

Generated Code

import java.util.regex.Matcher; import java.util.regex.Pattern; public class Example { public static void main(String[] args) { final String regex = "(?:\\s|^) # Start of string or word boundary\n" + "( # Capture Group\n" + "(?: # Non-Capture Group for X.\n" + "(?: # Nested NCG for 0..255\n" + "(?:\\d){1,2}| # Allow any single digit or any pair of digits or\n" + "(?:1\\d{2})| # 3 Digits starting with 1 or\n" + "(?:2[0-4]\\d)| # 3 Digists starting with 20..24 or\n" + "(?:25[0-5]) # 250..255\n" + ") # this should allow X=0..255 in the NCG\n" + "\\. # Must be followed by a literal .\n" + "){3} # X. Must repeat exactly 3 times\n" + "(?: # NCG for final 0..255\n" + "(?:\\d{1,2})| # Allow any single digit or any pair of digits or\n" + "(?:1\\d{2})| # 3 Digits starting with 1 or\n" + "(?:2[0-4]\\d)| # 3 digits starting 20..24 or\n" + "(?:25[0-5]) # 250.255\n" + ") # End of final 0.255\n" + ") # End of capture group\n" + "(?:\\s|$) # Must be followed by EOS or wspace"; final String string = "123.123.123.145 is an IP4 so is 1.2.3.4 and 1.22.33.44 but 256.1.2.3 isn't 254.1.2.3 is but 260.1.1.1 isn't nor 2.5.256.1 and 1.2.3.4:222 IP6 1.2.3.4.5.6"; final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex, Pattern.COMMENTS); final Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(string); while (matcher.find()) { System.out.println("Full match: " + matcher.group(0)); for (int i = 1; i <= matcher.groupCount(); i++) { System.out.println("Group " + i + ": " + matcher.group(i)); } } } }

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 Java, please visit: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/regex/Pattern.html