Regular Expressions 101

Save & Share

Flavor

  • PCRE2 (PHP >=7.3)
  • PCRE (PHP <7.3)
  • ECMAScript (JavaScript)
  • Python
  • Golang
  • Java 8
  • .NET 7.0 (C#)
  • Rust
  • Regex Flavor Guide

Function

  • Match
  • Substitution
  • List
  • Unit Tests

Tools

Sponsors
There are currently no sponsors. Become a sponsor today!
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

# coding=utf8 # the above tag defines encoding for this document and is for Python 2.x compatibility import re regex = r""" (?:\s|^) # Start of string or word boundary ( # Capture Group (?: # Non-Capture Group for X. (?: # Nested NCG for 0..255 (?:\d){1,2}| # Allow any single digit or any pair of digits or (?:1\d{2})| # 3 Digits starting with 1 or (?:2[0-4]\d)| # 3 Digists starting with 20..24 or (?:25[0-5]) # 250..255 ) # this should allow X=0..255 in the NCG \. # Must be followed by a literal . ){3} # X. Must repeat exactly 3 times (?: # NCG for final 0..255 (?:\d{1,2})| # Allow any single digit or any pair of digits or (?:1\d{2})| # 3 Digits starting with 1 or (?:2[0-4]\d)| # 3 digits starting 20..24 or (?:25[0-5]) # 250.255 ) # End of final 0.255 ) # End of capture group (?:\s|$) # Must be followed by EOS or wspace """ test_str = "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" matches = re.finditer(regex, test_str, re.VERBOSE) for matchNum, match in enumerate(matches, start=1): print ("Match {matchNum} was found at {start}-{end}: {match}".format(matchNum = matchNum, start = match.start(), end = match.end(), match = match.group())) for groupNum in range(0, len(match.groups())): groupNum = groupNum + 1 print ("Group {groupNum} found at {start}-{end}: {group}".format(groupNum = groupNum, start = match.start(groupNum), end = match.end(groupNum), group = match.group(groupNum))) # Note: for Python 2.7 compatibility, use ur"" to prefix the regex and u"" to prefix the test string and substitution.

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 Python, please visit: https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html