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 = ' +79996364778 rus 8 (918) 373-6633 rus +1 650-798-2800 usa 8(949)373-66-55 rus +7 (961) 859-56-19 rus +1 205-635-1136 usa +22(909)333 4334 +7(985)5310868 +79855310868 88008454545 +55 11 99999-5555 Brazil +593 7 282-3889 Ecuador (+44) 0848 9123 456 UK +1 284 852 5500 BVI +1 345 9490088 Grand Cayman +32 2 702-9200 Belgium +65 6511 9266 Asia Pacific +86 21 2230 1000 Shanghai +9124 4723300 India +821012345678 South Korea And for your extension pleasure +55 11 99999-5555 ramal 123 Brazil +55 11 99999-5555 foo786544 Brazil (?!\\b(0)\\1+\\b)(\\+?\\d{1,3})\\s?\\(?\\d{3}\\)?\\s?([. -]?)\\d{3}\\3\\d{4}'; my $regex = qr/(\n|\s)(?:(?:\+?(\d{1}|\d{2}|\d{3})\s*)\s*(?:\(\s*(\d{1}|\d{2}|\d{3})\s*\)|(\d{1,3}))\s*\-?(?:\(\s*(\d{1,3})\s*\)|(\d{3}))\s*\-?(?:\d{2}\s*\-?\d{2}))/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