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

use strict; my $str = 'CN=Lst-niketech.cis.splunk.admins,OU=Lists,OU=BEAVERTN,OU=OR,OU=USA,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Lst-niketech.cis.splunk.users,OU=Lists,OU=BEAVERTN,OU=OR,OU=USA,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Lst-NikeTech.CIS.SOC,OU=Lists,OU=BEAVERTN,OU=OR,OU=USA,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=ACL.Shareddata.CIS.Shared.Operations.WHQ.Change,OU=ACL,OU=Groups,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Shareddata.CIS.Shared.WHQ.Change,OU=SharedData,OU=Groups,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=SharedMail.Information.Security.Incident.Reporting.WHQ,OU=SharedMail,OU=Groups,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Lst-digitaltech.splunk.security.users,OU=Lists,OU=BEAVERTN,OU=OR,OU=USA,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Lst-digitaltech.splunk.security.lead,OU=Lists,OU=BEAVERTN,OU=OR,OU=USA,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Application.SolarWinds.Xerox.Nike.Users,OU=Application,OU=Groups,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Application.Citrix.Nike.Employees.Users,OU=Citrix,OU=Application,OU=Groups,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Nike.NikeTech.NIS.SecOps,OU=Nike,OU=Groups,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Application.Splunk.CIS.Admin.Users,OU=Application,OU=Groups,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=lst-Nike.Cloud.Change.Management,OU=Lists,OU=BEAVERTN,OU=OR,OU=USA,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Application.TimeTrack.Users,OU=Application,OU=Groups,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=SharedMail.nismonitor.WHQ,OU=SharedMail,OU=Groups,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Application.SCCM.Reporting.AM,OU=SCCM,OU=Application,OU=Groups,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Application.Casper.Report.User,OU=Application,OU=Groups,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Application.HR.Portal.ESS.NonRetail,OU=Portal,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Application.HR.Portal.ESS.US,OU=Portal,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Application.Hightail.Users,OU=Application,OU=Groups,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Lst-FE.All,OU=Lists,OU=BEAVERTN,OU=OR,OU=USA,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Lst-All.Exchange.Mailboxes BEAVERTN-SVR-VB,OU=Lists,OU=Groups,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Application.Citrix.WebEx.Users,OU=Citrix,OU=Application,OU=Groups,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Lst-NikeTech.CIS.ITSecurity.All,OU=Lists,OU=BEAVERTN,OU=OR,OU=USA,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Lst-Metaframe.Global.Users,OU=Lists,OU=BEAVERTN,OU=OR,OU=USA,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=SharedData.GIPS_AllStar.WHQ.Read,OU=SharedData,OU=Groups,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Application.citrix.shared.webex.users,OU=Citrix,OU=Application,OU=Groups,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=Lst-NikeTech.CIS.SecOps,OU=Lists,OU=BEAVERTN,OU=OR,OU=USA,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=SharedMail.Firewall.Changes.WHQ,OU=SharedMail,OU=Groups,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=SharedMail.Nike.Information.Security.WHQ,OU=SharedMail,OU=Groups,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com|CN=SharedMail.IOS.SSLCert.Requests.WHQ,OU=SharedMail,OU=Groups,DC=ad,DC=nike,DC=com'; my $regex = qr/(?:CN=)(\w+)/p; 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