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"
"
gm

Test String

Code Generator

Generated Code

import java.util.regex.Matcher; import java.util.regex.Pattern; public class Example { public static void main(String[] args) { final String regex = "\\S+\\d\\.\\d+"; final String string = "Internet Uplink FON 41.79.9.117 : Successful\n" + "Microtik 194.201.253.246 : Successful\n" + "Rooftop Switch 213.150.96.166: Successful\n\n" + " TELNET TEST\n" + " telnet mail.kenyaweb.com 25 : Connected to mail.kenyaweb.com. Escape character is '^]'. 220 mail.kenyaweb.com ESMTP Postfix\n" + " telnet mail.kenyaweb.com 110: Connected to mail.kenyaweb.com. Escape character is '^]'. +OK POP3 ready\n\n" + " MAIL SERVERS\n" + " mail.kenyaweb.com 194.201.253.165 : Successful\n" + " Relay.kenyaweb.com 194.201.253.124 : Successful\n" + " pop.kenyaweb.com 194.201.253.11 : Successful\n" + " hosting.kenyaweb.com 194.201.253.132 : Successful\n\n" + " WEB SERVERS\n" + "Web server 1 194.201.253.70 : Successful\n" + "Web server 2 194.201.253.8 : Successful\n" + "Web Server 3 194.201.253.5 : Successful\n" + "sungura.kenyaweb.com 192.64.112.132: Successful\n" + " \n\n" + " DNS\n" + " Linux.form-net.com 194.201.253.105 : Successful\n" + " ns200.kenyaweb.com 194.201.253.186 : Successful\n" + " ns201.kenyaweb.com 194.201.253.189 : Successful\n" + " ns203.kenyaweb.com 63.250.47.221 : Successful\n\n" + " BROWSE TEST\n" + " www.kenyaweb.com http://www.kenyaweb.com : Successful\n" + " www.yahoo.com http://www.yahoo.com : Successful\n" + " www.google.com http://www.google.com : Successful\n\n" + " MAIL TEST\n" + " Mail.Kenyaweb to yahoo : Received\n" + " Mail.Kenyaweb to gmail : Received\n" + " Yahoo to Mail.Kenyaweb : Received\n" + " Gmail to Mail.Kenyaweb : Received"; final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex, Pattern.MULTILINE); final Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(string); while (matcher.find()) { System.out.println("Full match: " + matcher.group(0)); for (int i = 1; i <= matcher.groupCount(); i++) { System.out.println("Group " + i + ": " + matcher.group(i)); } } } }

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 Java, please visit: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/regex/Pattern.html