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

r"
"
g

Test String

Code Generator

Generated Code

use strict; my $str = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <e2currentserviceinformation> <e2service> <e2servicereference>1:0:19:33F5:3ED:1:C00000:0:0:0:</e2servicereference> <e2servicename>ORF2St HD</e2servicename> <e2providername>ORF</e2providername> <e2videowidth>1280</e2videowidth> <e2videoheight>720</e2videoheight> <e2servicevideosize>1280x720</e2servicevideosize> <e2iswidescreen> 1 </e2iswidescreen> <e2apid>3001</e2apid> <e2vpid>3000</e2vpid> <e2pcrpid>3000</e2pcrpid> <e2pmtpid>301</e2pmtpid> <e2txtpid>3005</e2txtpid> <e2tsid>1005</e2tsid> <e2onid>1</e2onid> <e2sid>13301</e2sid> </e2service> <e2eventlist> <e2event> <e2eventservicereference>1:0:19:33F5:3ED:1:C00000:0:0:0:</e2eventservicereference> <e2eventservicename>ORF2St HD</e2eventservicename> <e2eventprovidername>ORF</e2eventprovidername> <e2eventid>42253</e2eventid> <e2eventname>Daheim in Österreich</e2eventname> <e2eventtitle>Daheim in Österreich</e2eventtitle> <e2eventdescription></e2eventdescription> <e2eventstart>1514392200</e2eventstart> <e2eventduration>3600</e2eventduration> <e2eventremaining>1034</e2eventremaining> <e2eventcurrenttime>1514394766</e2eventcurrenttime> <e2eventdescriptionextended></e2eventdescriptionextended> </e2event> <e2event> <e2eventservicereference>1:0:19:33F5:3ED:1:C00000:0:0:0:</e2eventservicereference> <e2eventservicename>ORF2St HD</e2eventservicename> <e2eventprovidername>ORF</e2eventprovidername> <e2eventid>42254</e2eventid> <e2eventname>konkret</e2eventname> <e2eventtitle>konkret</e2eventtitle> <e2eventdescription></e2eventdescription> <e2eventstart>1514395800</e2eventstart> <e2eventduration>950</e2eventduration> <e2eventremaining>1984</e2eventremaining> <e2eventcurrenttime>1514394766</e2eventcurrenttime> <e2eventdescriptionextended></e2eventdescriptionextended> </e2event> </e2eventlist> </e2currentserviceinformation> '; my $regex = qr/.*?<e2eventduration>(.*?)</e2eventduration/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