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 single character of: a, b, c or d
    [[ab][cd]]
  • 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]
  • Character class intersection
    [\w&&[^\d]]
  • 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

# coding=utf8 # the above tag defines encoding for this document and is for Python 2.x compatibility import re regex = (r"\b((0?[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])[-/.\s](0?[1-9]|1[0-2])[-/.\s](19[0-9]{2}|200[0-9]))|((0?[1-9]|1[0-2])[-/.\s](0?[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])[-/.\s](19[0-9]{2}|200[0-9]))|(([012][1-9]|3[01])(st|nd|rd|th)?\s(?i:Jan|Feb|Fév|Mar|Apr|Avr|May|Mai|Jun|Juin|Jul|Juil|Aug|Sep|Sept|Oct|Nov|Dec|Déc)\s(?:19[0-9]{2}|200[0-9]))|((?i:Jan|Feb|Fév|Mar|Apr|Avr|May|Mai|Jun|Juin|Jul|Juil|Aug|Sep|Sept|Oct|Nov|Dec|Déc)\s(?:0?[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])(st|nd|rd|th)?\s(?:19[0-9]{2}|200[0-9]))|((0?[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])(st|nd|rd|th)?\s(?i:January|janvier|February|fevrier|février|March|mars|April|avril|May|mai|June|juin|July|juillet|August|aout|août|September|septembre|October|octobre|November|novembre|December|décembre|decembre)\s(?:19[0-9]{2}|200[0-9]))|((?iu:January|janvier|February|fevrier|février|March|mars|April|avril|May|mai|June|juin|July|juillet|August|aout|août|September|septembre|October|octobre|November|novembre|December|décembre|decembre)\s(?:0?[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])(st|nd|rd|th)?\s(?:19[0-9]{2}|200[0-9]))|(0?[1-9]|1[0-2])[-\/.\s](0?[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])[-\/.\s](19|20)0[0-9]|(19|20)0[0-9][-\/.\s](0?[1-9]|1[0-2])[-\/.\s](0?[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])\b\n") test_str = ("April 2nd 2008\n" "April 2 2008\n" "April 02 2008\n" "2009-01-01\n" "31-03-2009\n" "03-31-2009\n" "31 March 2009\n" "March 31 2009\n" "31 mars 2009\n" "May 10th 1989\n" "April 2nd 2008\n" "2009.01.01\n" "2009 1 31\n" "31st december 2009\n" "31 décembre 2009\n" "31 Decembre 2009\n" "2009/02/01\n" "2009.01.01\n" "2009 01 01\n" "31 03 2009\n" "12 31 2009") matches = re.finditer(regex, test_str, re.MULTILINE) 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