Regular Expressions 101

Pro

^start of line

Non-Capturing Group(?:(a);([^;\n]*);([^;\n]*)|.*)

1st Alternative(a);([^;\n]*);([^;\n]*)

Group 1(a)

athe literal a (97₁₀ / 141₈ / 61₁₆) (case sensitive)

;the literal ; (59₁₀ / 73₈ / 3B₁₆)

Group 2([^;\n]*)

Negated Character Class[^;\n]*

*matches any number of characters outside the set below:

;the literal ; (59₁₀ / 73₈ / 3B₁₆)

\na line-feed (newline) character (ASCII 10)

;the literal ; (59₁₀ / 73₈ / 3B₁₆)

Group 3([^;\n]*)

Negated Character Class[^;\n]*

*matches any number of characters outside the set below:

;the literal ; (59₁₀ / 73₈ / 3B₁₆)

\na line-feed (newline) character (ASCII 10)

2nd Alternative.*

.*any character (except for line terminators), repeated any number of times

$end of line

Global pattern flags

g modifier: global. Finds all matches instead of stopping after the first

m modifier: multiline. Causes ^ and $ to match the start and end of each line, not only the start and end of the string

Detailed match information will be displayed here automatically.

25 tokens

^(?:(a);([^;\n]*);([^;\n]*)|.*)$

New

a;b;c
a;x;23
b;b;12
a;xxx;bbb;34

a;b;c
a;x;23
b;b;12
a;xxx;bbb;34