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

/
/
g

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

use strict; my $str = '(home_bbbbbb_14.png); behavior: url(#default#VML); background-image: url(home_bbbbbb_14.ttf); background-image: url(\'home.ttf\'); background-image: url(\'home.png\'); background-image: url(images/home_bbbbbb_14.png); background-image: url(\'images/home_bbbbbb_14.jpeg\'); background-image: url("images/home_bbbbbb_14.png"); background-image: url(home_bbbbbb_14.png); background-image: url(\'home_bbbbbb$_14.png\'); background-image: url("home_bbbbbb_14.png"); background-image: url("../img/home_bbbbbb_14.png"); background-image: url("./img/home_bbbbbb_14.png"); background-image: url("../../img/home_bbbbbb_14.jpg"); url("images/animated-overlay.gif"); url("images/ui-bg_flat_75_ffffff_40x100.png"); url(\'select2.png\'); url(select2x2.png); url(\'../images/back_enabled.png\'); url(\'../pic/back_enabled.png\'); background-image: url(data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyBmaWxsPSIjMDAwMDAwIiBoZWlnaHQ9IjI0IiB2aWV3Qm94PSIwIDAgMjQgMjQiIHdpZHRoPSIyNCIgeG1sbnM9Imh0dHA6Ly93d3cudzMub3JnLzIwMDAvc3ZnIj4gICAgPHBhdGggZD0iTTAgMGgyNHYyNEgweiIgZmlsbD0ibm9uZSIvPiAgICA8cGF0aCBkPSJNMTIgOGMtMi4yMSAwLTQgMS43OS00IDRzMS43OSA0IDQgNCA0LTEuNzkgNC00LTEuNzktNC00LTR6bS03IDdIM3Y0YzAgMS4xLjkgMiAyIDJoNHYtMkg1di00ek01IDVoNFYzSDVjLTEuMSAwLTIgLjktMiAydjRoMlY1em0xNC0yaC00djJoNHY0aDJWNWMwLTEuMS0uOS0yLTItMnptMCAxNmgtNHYyaDRjMS4xIDAgMi0uOSAyLTJ2LTRoLTJ2NHoiLz48L3N2Zz4=); '; my $regex = qr/url(?:\(\"|\(\'|\(\/?.*\/|\()(\.+)?(\/.*\/)?(\w*)+(.png|.jpg|.gif|.jpeg)/p; 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