Regular Expressions 101

Explanation

Pro

1st Alternative<[^>]+>(*SKIP)(*FAIL)

<the literal < (60₁₀ / 74₈ / 3C₁₆)

Negated Character Class[^>]+

+matches at least one character outside the set below:

>the literal > (62₁₀ / 76₈ / 3E₁₆)

(*SKIP)acts like (*PRUNE), but the next unanchored match attempt starts where (*SKIP) was reached instead of at the next subject character

(*FAIL)forces the current match attempt to fail at this position

2nd Alternative\b([\pL'’-]{2,})(?![\d\pL])

\ban ASCII word boundary

Group 1([\pL'’-]{2,})

Character Class[\pL'’-]{2,}

{2,}matches at least 2 characters from the set below:

\pLany Unicode letter

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

’the literal ’ (8217₁₀ / 20031₈ / 2019₁₆)

-the literal - (45₁₀ / 55₈ / 2D₁₆)

Negative Lookahead(?![\d\pL])

Character Class[\d\pL]

\da digit

\pLany Unicode letter

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

Match Information

Detailed match information will be displayed here automatically.

Quick Reference

25 tokens

Regular Expression

<[^>]+>(*SKIP)(*FAIL)|\b([\pL'’-]{2,})(?![\d\pL])

New


<div>The regex selects words of at least 2 characters. If you want to increase this number, change the minimum number here: {2,}, in the regex.</div>

<div>The regex matches compound words and words containing a single quote. Eg: don't, dust-filled.</div>
<div>It does not select punctuations or inside tags.</div>

<div>If you don't want to select compound words, remove the dash at the end of [\pL'’-] in the regex.</div>

<div>It does not select words containing digits: 123start, start123, sta123rt.</div>