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 = 'Accident Only Hospital 750 - Basic Accident Only Hospital 500 - Basic Basic Accident Only Hospital $500 Excess Basic Accident Only Hospital $750 Excess Basic Hospital Cover with $250 Excess Basic Hospital Cover with $500 Excess BASIC HOSPITAL COVER Basic Plus Starter Hospital $500 Excess Basic Plus Starter Hospital $750 Excess Bronze Plus Simple Hospital $250 Excess Bronze Plus Simple Hospital $500 Excess Bronze Plus Simple Hospital $750 Excess Budget Family Hospital Cover with $250 Excess Budget Family Hospital Cover with $500 Excess Budget Family Hospital $750 Excess Budget Hospital with $500 Excess and Ambulance Levy Budget Hospital with $500 Excess Budget Hospital with $250 Excess and Ambulance Levy Budget Hospital with $250 Excess Budget Hospital with $1000 Excess and Ambulance Levy Budget Hospital with $1000 Excess Budget Hospital $750 Excess - Bronze Plus Established Family Hospital Cover with $250 Excess Established Family Hospital Cover with $500 Excess Established Family Hospital Cover with $750 Excess Gold Complete Hospital $500 Excess Gold Complete Hospital $750 Excess Growing Family Hospital Cover with $250 Excess Growing Family Hospital Cover with $500 Excess Prime Plus with Nil Excess Hospital Prime Plus with $250 Excess Hospital Prime Plus with $500 Excess Hospital Simple Start Hospital Cover Silver Plus Advanced Hospital $250 Excess Silver Plus Advanced Hospital $500 Excess Silver Plus Advanced Hospital $750 Excess Silver Plus Essential Hospital $250 Excess Silver Plus Essential Hospital $500 Excess Silver Plus Essential Hospital $500 Excess Top Hospital with Pregnancy Top Hospital with Pregnancy - Gold Top Hospital with Pregnancy $250 Excess Top Hospital with Pregnancy $250 Excess - Gold Top Hospital with Pregnancy $500 Excess Top Hospital with Pregnancy $500 Excess - Gold Top Hospital with Pregnancy $750 Excess Top Hospital with Pregnancy $750 Excess - Gold Top Hospital Cover no Pregnancy Top Hospital Cover no Pregnancy with $250 Excess Top Hospital Cover no Pregnancy with $500 Excess'; my $regex = qr/^(?:(?:Accident Only Hospital (?:500 - Basic|750 - Basic)|B(?:asic (?:Accident Only Hospital \$(?:500 Excess|750 Excess)|Hospital Cover with \$(?:250 Excess|500 Excess)|Plus Starter Hospital \$(?:500 Excess|750 Excess))|ASIC HOSPITAL COVER|ronze Plus Simple Hospital \$(?:250 Excess|500 Excess|750 Excess)|udget (?:Family Hospital (?:Cover with \$(?:250 Excess|500 Excess)|\$750 Excess)|Hospital (?:with \$(?:1000 Excess(?: and Ambulance Levy)?|250 Excess(?: and Ambulance Levy)?|500 Excess(?: and Ambulance Levy)?)|\$750 Excess - Bronze Plus)))|Established Family Hospital Cover with \$(?:250 Excess|500 Excess|750 Excess)|G(?:old Complete Hospital \$(?:500 Excess|750 Excess)|rowing Family Hospital Cover with \$(?:250 Excess|500 Excess))|Prime Plus with (?:Nil Excess Hospital|\$(?:250 Excess Hospital|500 Excess Hospital))|Si(?:mple Start Hospital Cover|lver Plus (?:Advanced Hospital \$(?:250 Excess|500 Excess|750 Excess)|Essential Hospital \$(?:250 Excess|500 Excess)))|Top Hospital (?:with Pregnancy(?: (?:- Gold|\$(?:250 Excess(?: - Gold)?|500 Excess(?: - Gold)?|750 Excess(?: - Gold)?)))?|Cover no Pregnancy(?: with \$(?:250 Excess|500 Excess))?)))$/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