Regular Expressions 101

Community Patterns

23

Get path from any text

Created·2023-01-31 14:38
Updated·2023-07-23 20:17
Flavor·PCRE2 (PHP)
Recommended·
Get path (windows style) from any type of text (error message, e-mail corps ...), quoted or not. THIS IS THE SINGLE LINE VERSION ! If you want understand how it work or edit it, go https://regex101.com/r/7o2fyy Relative path are not supported The goal is to catch what "Look like" a path. See the limitations UNC path and prefix path like //./], [//?/] or [//./UNC/] are allowed some url path like [file:///C:/] or [file://] are allowed Catch path quoted with ["] and [']. But these quotes are include with the catch Quoted path is not concerned by limitations Limitations : (only unquoted path) [dot] and [space] is allowed, but not in a row [dot+space] or [space+dot at end of file name isn't catched INSIDE A NAME FILE (or last directory if it is a path to a directory) : [comma] is not supported (it stop the catch) after a first [dot], any [space] stop the catch after a [space], catch is stoped if next character is not a [letter], [digit] or [-] so, double [space] stop the catch Compatibility compatible PCRE, PCRE2 AutoHotkey : don't forget to escape "%" in "`%" /!\ Powershell and .Net /!\\ : this regex need some modification to be interpreted by powershell. You have to replace each (?&CapturGroupName) by \k. Use this powershell code to do this replacement : ` $powershellRegex = @' [Put here the regex to replace (?&CapturGroupName) with \k] '@ -replace '\(\?&(\w+)\)', '\k' ` This example code must return : [Put here the regex to replace \k with \k]
Submitted by nitrateag

Community Library Entry

1

Regular Expression
Created·2026-07-01 16:07
Updated·2026-07-09 21:20
Flavor·PCRE2 (PHP)

/
(?<![^\s>]) # LEFT boundary: preceding char is whitespace, '>' (end of a tag), or start-of-string ( # capture 1: the whole formula (?![^<>]*>) # guard: don't start inside an HTML tag's attribute list (?: # ============ HEAD one or more element/bracket "units" ============ (?: # a "unit": an element/bracket run, then any trailing counts (?: (?:H[eogsf]?|L[iavru]|B[eahkri]?|C[arofmusenld]?|N[eiahopdb]?|O[sg]?|F[rlem]?|M[godtcn]|A[lrsgutmc]|S[icerngmb]?|P[uabotmrd]?|Kr?|T[icebmsalh]|V|Z[nr]|G[ade]|R[buhenagf]|Yb?|I[nr]?|Xe|E[urs]|D[ysb]|W|U) # any element symbol (all 118) |[()\[\]] # ...or a bracket )+ (?: # then any trailing count, in ANY encoding, a plain digit, or a repeat index: (?: [₁₂₃₄₅₆₇₈₉][₀₁₂₃₄₅₆₇₈₉]* # subscript glyphs H₂ |[¹²³⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹][⁰¹²³⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹]* # superscript glyphs |\\u208[1-9](?:\\u208[0-9])* # \u escape, subscript H\u2082 (unparsed JSON) |(?:\\u00[bB][239]|\\u207[4-9])(?:\\u2070|\\u00[bB][239]|\\u207[4-9])* # \u escape, superscript |&\#(?:0*832[1-9]|[xX]0*208[1-9]);(?:&\#(?:0*832[0-9]|[xX]0*208[0-9]);)* # HTML entity, subscript H&#8322; / H&#x2082; |&\#(?:0*(?:178|179|185|830[89]|831[0-3])|[xX]0*(?:[bB][239]|207[4-9]));(?:&\#(?:0*(?:178|179|185|8304|830[89]|831[0-3])|[xX]0*(?:2070|[bB][239]|207[4-9]));)* # HTML entity, superscript |<su[bp]>[1-9][0-9]*<\/su[bp]> # <sub>/<sup> tag H<sub>2</sub> ) |[1-9][0-9]* # ...or a plain inline integer |[ₙₘₓ] # ...or a repeat-index glyph (…)ₙ NEW |<su[bp]>[nmx]<\/su[bp]> # ...or a repeat index in a tag (…)<sub>n</sub> NEW )* )+ # one or more units (a lone valid element is allowed) ) (?:[+-](?![A-Za-z0-9]))? # optional ionic charge on the head (K+, …F₃-) (?: # ============ zero or more salt / hydrate components ============ (?:\s*[·•‧∙⋅・・*]\s*|\.(?=[A-Za-z(\[])) # separator: a spaced dot variant, OR a tight "." right before a component (?: # optional coefficient: a sub/sup number, an integer/fraction, or x/n [₁₂₃₄₅₆₇₈₉][₀₁₂₃₄₅₆₇₈₉]*|[¹²³⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹][⁰¹²³⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹]*|\\u208[1-9](?:\\u208[0-9])*|(?:\\u00[bB][239]|\\u207[4-9])(?:\\u2070|\\u00[bB][239]|\\u207[4-9])*|&\#(?:0*832[1-9]|[xX]0*208[1-9]);(?:&\#(?:0*832[0-9]|[xX]0*208[0-9]);)*|&\#(?:0*(?:178|179|185|830[89]|831[0-3])|[xX]0*(?:[bB][239]|207[4-9]));(?:&\#(?:0*(?:178|179|185|8304|830[89]|831[0-3])|[xX]0*(?:2070|[bB][239]|207[4-9]));)*|<su[bp]>[1-9][0-9]*<\/su[bp]>|[1-9][0-9]*(?:\/[1-9][0-9]*)?|[xn] )? (?: # the component's own units (elements/brackets + counts), one or more (?: (?:H[eogsf]?|L[iavru]|B[eahkri]?|C[arofmusenld]?|N[eiahopdb]?|O[sg]?|F[rlem]?|M[godtcn]|A[lrsgutmc]|S[icerngmb]?|P[uabotmrd]?|Kr?|T[icebmsalh]|V|Z[nr]|G[ade]|R[buhenagf]|Yb?|I[nr]?|Xe|E[urs]|D[ysb]|W|U) |[()\[\]] )+ (?: (?:[₁₂₃₄₅₆₇₈₉][₀₁₂₃₄₅₆₇₈₉]*|[¹²³⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹][⁰¹²³⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹]*|\\u208[1-9](?:\\u208[0-9])*|(?:\\u00[bB][239]|\\u207[4-9])(?:\\u2070|\\u00[bB][239]|\\u207[4-9])*|&\#(?:0*832[1-9]|[xX]0*208[1-9]);(?:&\#(?:0*832[0-9]|[xX]0*208[0-9]);)*|&\#(?:0*(?:178|179|185|830[89]|831[0-3])|[xX]0*(?:[bB][239]|207[4-9]));(?:&\#(?:0*(?:178|179|185|8304|830[89]|831[0-3])|[xX]0*(?:2070|[bB][239]|207[4-9]));)*|<su[bp]>[1-9][0-9]*<\/su[bp]>)|[1-9][0-9]*|[ₙₘₓ]|<su[bp]>[nmx]<\/su[bp]> # NEW: repeat index also allowed on components )* )+ (?:[+-](?![A-Za-z0-9]))? # optional charge on the component )* ) (?![^\s<]) # RIGHT boundary: following char is whitespace, '<' (start of a tag), or end-of-string
/
gmx
Open regex in editor

Description

Parses advanced chemical formula out of a paragraph of text

Submitted by justin hyland