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

/
/
i

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

import Foundation let pattern = #"href="(.+?)""# let regex = try! NSRegularExpression(pattern: pattern, options: .caseInsensitive) let testString = ##""" <![CDATA[<p>Buganda Road Chief Magistrate James Mawanda Eremye has released Makerere University administrator Edward Kisuze. The suspended administrator is accused of sexually harassing a student. Court told Kisuzze to pay cash bail of Shs2m and each of his three sureties Shs10m.</p> <p><a href="http://matookerepublic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/kisuze.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-32386" src="http://matookerepublic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/kisuze-300x175.png" alt="" width="680" height="396" srcset="http://matookerepublic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/kisuze-300x175.png 300w, http://matookerepublic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/kisuze-696x405.png 696w, http://matookerepublic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/kisuze.png 720w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" /></a></p> <p>However, before releasing him the magistrate ordered the prosecutor to disclose to the defence the evidence to enable commencement of hearing of this case come <span data-term="goog_350196878">May 28 2018</span>.</p> <p>On April 14, police arrested Kisuze after a viral picture of him kissing the student&#8217;s private parts in office was released online. On May 4<sup>,</sup> he appeared before court and was remanded to Luzira prison after pleading not guilty to charges.</p> ]]> """## let stringRange = NSRange(location: 0, length: testString.utf16.count) if let firstMatch = regex.firstMatch(in: testString, range: stringRange) { let result: [String] = (1 ..< firstMatch.numberOfRanges).map { (testString as NSString).substring(with: firstMatch.range(at: $0)) } print(result) } else { print("No matches were found.") }

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 Swift 5.2, please visit: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/nsregularexpression