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

use strict; my $str = '-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY----- MIICIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAg8AMIICCgKCAgEAwghnvMu5YfnbprpLX105 SGuanX7zF+4mgNqozyFB7UsIha3ztQIYydrLc7pKXK7vQWWlqLUn0JW1vlAiTs2A O+wdaFaEwKTNk1+mobGlpKUrzJEy24cnGV9XxNnh+WuxR7TicEpzNOdmDnSUaFMk MdfpDXKKXfu/HJrADYuMq7VckEBR1yOBXVREDYpS8YvA85Kw04VAPVzxOHU7qdTR hUPUD1rY3nKYJj33P0EW1e53xqeXZiiW6p3yi04X+OQscylMnfvxsG8tK18Qgi30 cQmny3yYGocKpfG7679Jy5EnkchqoC9L72Ust8A6s0WZVAe/bZxs5J5QEDdAkgAi Miw84vWIHj2cuwgNKzBJHZ1uHmFrM8rkJWBvLyTRvS1pgn/yjQ4evOTH/yVTGnyM BOSwrXmFbt4KXzXwtXIf0wllf2HZ3CwhB9g86ijPjvvgXn8eUbBEN12c/MePf3l1 doECe6oavsthqpk77IuFC6Yuy5ck0fkcHT2cw/U6hUBdTbuXs4/i7gMLE9VpjiDh lYoMCYmuCR8Vn/G5gMQ4NbMjyvZY/d5U8tvktsC2ImQefuWu8vi/PGvDIdhq3TTz sswoxcLxyqq0vjOnBmpMpua2PpLlZrSuBkuKIuZnxAiRkkLamAVH6SylYwmWvvam ssssss1 -----END PRIVATE KEY----- -----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY----- MIICfzCCAegCCQDxxeXw914Y2DANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQsFADCBgzELMAkGA1UEBhMC SU4xEzARBgNVBAgMCldlc3RiZW5nYWwxEDAOBgNVBAcMB0tvbGthdGExFDASBgNV BAoMC1BhbmNvLCBJbmMuMRUwEwYDVQQDDAxSb2hpdCBQcmFzYWQxIDAeBgkqhkiG 9w0BCQEWEXJvZm9mb2ZAZ21haWwuY29tMB4XDTIwMDkwOTA1NTExN1oXDTIwMTAw OTA1NTExN1owgYMxCzAJBgNVBAYTAklOMRMwEQYDVQQIDApXZXN0YmVuZ2FsMRAw DgYDVQQHDAdLb2xrYXRhMRQwEgYDVQQKDAtQYW5jbywgSW5jLjEVMBMGA1UEAwwM Um9oaXQgUHJhc2FkMSAwHgYJKoZIhvcNAQkBFhFyb2ZvZm9mQGdtYWlsLmNvbTCB nzANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOBjQAwgYkCgYEAt/EfcF3FG4TneOBWr4JhOUdyuCXm Dhy5yO3VKtQfPxr+5d0joCSnn/5vYDNSr1MfedZmqVxrXFoMAdPCd71BNmDmeLVi QK61WREtASP0ZhQMoUBT+R3Fpdy0jPS0YoT/fBd96CJCmgsQOS8Tq5IKVeB61MyC kwAQ2Goe0T3sdVkCAwEAATANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQsFAAOBgQATe6ixdAjoV7BSHgRX bXM2+IZLq8kq3s7ck0EZrRVhsivutcaZwDXRCCinB+OlPedbzXwNZGvVX0nwPYHG BfiXwdiuZeVJ88ni6Fm6RhoPtu2QF1UExfBvSXuMBgR+evp+e3QadNpGx6Ppl1aC hWF6W2H9+MAlU7yvtmCQQuZmfQ== -----END PUBLIC KEY----- -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- MIICfzCCAegCCQDxxeXw914Y2DANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQsFADCBgzELMAkGA1UEBhMC SU4xEzARBgNVBAgMCldlc3RiZW5nYWwxEDAOBgNVBAcMB0tvbGthdGExFDASBgNV BAoMC1BhbmNvLCBJbmMuMRUwEwYDVQQDDAxSb2hpdCBQcmFzYWQxIDAeBgkqhkiG 9w0BCQEWEXJvZm9mb2ZAZ21haWwuY29tMB4XDTIwMDkwOTA1NTExN1oXDTIwMTAw OTA1NTExN1owgYMxCzAJBgNVBAYTAklOMRMwEQYDVQQIDApXZXN0YmVuZ2FsMRAw DgYDVQQHDAdLb2xrYXRhMRQwEgYDVQQKDAtQYW5jbywgSW5jLjEVMBMGA1UEAwwM Um9oaXQgUHJhc2FkMSAwHgYJKoZIhvcNAQkBFhFyb2ZvZm9mQGdtYWlsLmNvbTCB nzANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOBjQAwgYkCgYEAt/EfcF3FG4TneOBWr4JhOUdyuCXm Dhy5yO3VKtQfPxr+5d0joCSnn/5vYDNSr1MfedZmqVxrXFoMAdPCd71BNmDmeLVi QK61WREtASP0ZhQMoUBT+R3Fpdy0jPS0YoT/fBd96CJCmgsQOS8Tq5IKVeB61MyC kwAQ2Goe0T3sdVkCAwEAATANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQsFAAOBgQATe6ixdAjoV7BSHgRX bXM2+IZLq8kq3s7ck0EZrRVhsivutcaZwDXRCCinB+OlPedbzXwNZGvVX0nwPYHG BfiXwdiuZeVJ88ni6Fm6RhoPtu2QF1UExfBvSXuMBgR+evp+e3QadNpGx6Ppl1aC hWF6W2H9+MAlU7yvtmCQQuZmfQ== -----END CERTIFICATE-----'; my $regex = qr/(-----BEGIN (?:PUBLIC )?KEY-----(\n|\r|\r\n)([0-9a-zA-Z+\/=]{64}(\n|\r|\r\n))*([0-9a-zA-Z\+\/=]{1,63}(\n|\r|\r\n))?-----END PUBLIC KEY-----)/mp; 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