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

$re = '/^"(?:(?:[^"]*)")+?,/'; $str = '"POLICE ARREST MAN ACCUSED\\r\\nOF MURDERING MISSING GIRL\\r\\n \\r\\nA New York man is in cust-\\r\\nody after he confessed to \\r\\nthe murder of a Sterling\\r\\ngirl who had been missing.\\r\\n \\r\\nJohn Ward of Palmyra was\\r\\npulled over on Snake\\r\\nMeadow Hill Road last\\r\\nnight after a state troop-\\r\\ner reported hearing a gun-\\r\\nshot. The officer thought\\r\\nit might be poachers.\\r\\n \\r\\nThe officer said Ward was\\r\\nacting \\"nervous and\\r\\nsuspicious\\" after being\\r\\npulled over. When quest-\\r\\nioned, Ward reportedly\\r\\nsaid \\"I\'ve killed her\\".\\r\\nAccording to the police re-\\r\\nport, the officer called\\r\\nfor backup after Ward be-\\r\\ncame increasingly upset,\\r\\nsaying repeatedly that\\r\\nthere was \\"a demon inside\\r\\nher\\".\\r\\nWard was taken to Sterling\\r\\npolice headquarters for\\r\\nfurther questioning. Ward\\r\\nthen confessed to\\r\\nauthorities that he shot\\r\\nand killed Amy Martin, a\\r\\nseventeen year-old girl\\r\\nwho had been missing for\\r\\nnine days after escaping\\r\\nfrom a mental institution.\\r\\n \\r\\nAfter a brief search,\\r\\npolice located Amy\'s body\\r\\nin the woods near the now-\\r\\nabandoned Martin home. In\\r\\naddition to receiving a \\r\\ngunshot wound to the sto-\\r\\nmach, Amy showed injuries\\r\\nsuggesting that she had \\r\\nbeen thrown out of the \\r\\nsecond story window of\\r\\nthe house. An officer who\\r\\nhelped recover the body\\r\\ntold reporters that Amy\'s\\r\\nface had been \\"mutilated\\r\\nin a very brutal manner\\".\\r\\nWard was found dressed as\\r\\na priest when he was\\r\\npulled over. It is sus-\\r\\npected that he imperson-\\r\\nated a priest to gain his\\r\\nvictim\'s trust after\\r\\nCatholic authorities in\\r\\nRome confirmed that Ward\\r\\nwas not an ordained\\r\\nminister.\\r\\n \\r\\n(The rest of the article\\r\\nis missing.)\\r\\n",'; preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0); // Print the entire match result var_dump($matches);

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 PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php