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

/
/
gm

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

$re = '/\w.*solarwinds.orion\\\\(solarwinds.*|swjobengine.*|netflowservice.*|counterfetcher.*)\.exe$/m'; $str = '// Explanation // Matches all files part of the "orion" folder that start with solarwinds,swjobengine,netflowservice,counterfetcher and ends with ".exe" // Some Solarwinds exe starting with "solarwinds." e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\solarwinds.orion.logmgmt.syslogservice.exe e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\solarwinds.businesslayerhostx64.exe e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\solarwinds.orion.logmgmt.syslogservice.exe e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\solarwinds.collector.service.exe e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\solarwinds.orion.logmgmt.pollingservice.exe e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\solarwinds.businesslayerhost.exe e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\solarwinds.orion.logmgmt.trapservice.exe e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\solarwinds.recommendations.service.exe e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\solarwinds.informationservice.servicev3.exe e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\solarwinds.highavailability.service.exe e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\solarwinds.servicehost.process.exe e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\solarwinds.topology.calculator.exe // Example with another drive C:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\solarwinds.topology.calculator.exe // Some Solarwinds exe NOT starting with "solarwinds." e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\netflowservice.exe e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\swjobengineworker2.exe e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\swjobenginesvc2.exe e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\swjobengineworker2x64.exe e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\counterfetcher.exe // Non Orion folders c:\\program files\\common files\\solarwinds\\administrationservice\\solarwinds.administration.exe // TESTS e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\solarwinds.exe e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\solarwinds.test.exe e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\orion\\solarwinds.test.test2.exe Without orion folder e:\\program files\\solarwinds\\NotOrion\\solarwinds.servicehost.process.exe '; 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