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
Processing...

Test String

Code Generator

Generated Code

import re regex = re.compile(r"^[\w\d-]*(?=\=)", flags=re.MULTILINE) test_str = ("# This file may be used to create an environment using:\n" "# $ conda create --name <env> --file <this file>\n" "# platform: osx-64\n" "absl-py=0.7.1=py36_0\n" "appnope=0.1.0=py36_1000\n" "asn1crypto=0.24.0=py36_1003\n" "astor=0.7.1=py_0\n" "attrs=19.1.0=py_0\n" "backcall=0.1.0=py_0\n" "bleach=3.1.0=py_0\n" "blinker=1.4=py_1\n" "boto=2.49.0=py_0\n" "boto3=1.9.210=py_0\n" "botocore=1.12.210=py_0\n" "bz2file=0.98=py_0\n" "c-ares=1.15.0=h01d97ff_1001\n" "ca-certificates=2019.6.16=hecc5488_0\n" "certifi=2019.6.16=py36_1\n" "cffi=1.12.3=py36hccf1714_0\n" "chardet=3.0.4=py36_1003\n" "cryptography=2.7=py36h212c5bf_0\n" "cycler=0.10.0=py_1\n" "cymem=2.0.2=py36h6de7cb9_0\n" "cython-blis=0.2.4=py36h01d97ff_1\n" "decorator=4.4.0=py_0\n" "defusedxml=0.5.0=py_1\n" "docutils=0.15.2=py36_0\n" "en-core-web-lg=2.1.0=pypi_0\n" "en-core-web-md=2.1.0=pypi_0\n" "en-core-web-sm=2.1.0=pypi_0\n" "entrypoints=0.3=py36_1000\n" "freetype=2.10.0=h24853df_1\n" "funcy=1.13=py_0\n" "future=0.17.1=py36_1000\n" "gast=0.2.2=py_0\n" "gensim=3.4.0=py36h1de35cc_0\n" "grpcio=1.22.0=py36h6ef0057_0\n" "h5py=2.9.0=nompi_py36h6248fd5_1104\n" "hdf5=1.10.5=nompi_h0cbb7df_1100\n" "idna=2.8=py36_1000\n" "ipykernel=5.1.2=py36h5ca1d4c_0\n" "ipython=7.7.0=py36h5ca1d4c_0\n" "ipython_genutils=0.2.0=py_1\n" "jedi=0.15.1=py36_0\n" "jinja2=2.10.1=py_0\n" "jmespath=0.9.4=py_0\n" "joblib=0.13.2=py_0\n" "jpeg=9c=h1de35cc_1001\n" "jsonschema=3.0.2=py36_0\n" "jupyter_client=5.3.1=py_0\n" "jupyter_core=4.4.0=py_0\n" "keras-applications=1.0.7=py_1\n" "keras-preprocessing=1.0.9=py_1\n" "kiwisolver=1.1.0=py36h770b8ee_0\n" "libblas=3.8.0=12_openblas\n" "libcblas=3.8.0=12_openblas\n" "libcxx=8.0.0=4\n" "libcxxabi=8.0.0=4\n" "libffi=3.2.1=h6de7cb9_1006\n" "libgfortran=3.0.1=0\n" "liblapack=3.8.0=12_openblas\n" "libopenblas=0.3.7=hd44dcd8_1\n" "libpng=1.6.37=h2573ce8_0\n" "libprotobuf=3.9.1=hfbae3c0_0\n" "libsodium=1.0.17=h01d97ff_0\n" "libtiff=4.0.10=hd08fb8f_1003\n" "lz4-c=1.8.3=h6de7cb9_1001\n" "markdown=3.1.1=py_0\n" "markupsafe=1.1.1=py36h1de35cc_0\n" "matplotlib-base=3.1.1=py36h3a684a6_1\n" "mistune=0.8.4=py36h1de35cc_1000\n" "murmurhash=1.0.0=py36h0a44026_0\n" "nbconvert=5.6.0=py_0\n" "nbformat=4.4.0=py_1\n" "ncurses=6.1=h0a44026_1002\n" "nltk=3.4.4=py_0\n" "notebook=6.0.0=py36_0\n" "numexpr=2.7.0=py36h86efe34_0\n" "numpy=1.17.0=py36h6b0580a_0\n" "oauthlib=3.0.1=py_0\n" "olefile=0.46=py_0\n" "openssl=1.1.1c=h01d97ff_0\n" "pandas=0.25.0=py36h86efe34_0\n" "pandoc=2.7.3=0\n" "pandocfilters=1.4.2=py_1\n" "parso=0.5.1=py_0\n" "patsy=0.5.1=py_0\n" "pexpect=4.7.0=py36_0\n" "pickleshare=0.7.5=py36_1000\n" "pip=19.2.2=py36_0\n" "plac=0.9.6=py36_0\n" "preshed=2.0.1=py36h6de7cb9_0\n" "prometheus_client=0.7.1=py_0\n" "prompt_toolkit=2.0.9=py_0\n" "protobuf=3.9.1=py36h6de7cb9_0\n" "ptyprocess=0.6.0=py_1001\n" "pycountry=19.8.18=pypi_0\n" "pycparser=2.19=py36_1\n" "pygments=2.4.2=py_0\n" "pyjwt=1.7.1=py_0\n" "pyopenssl=19.0.0=py36_0\n" "pyparsing=2.4.2=py_0\n" "pyrsistent=0.15.4=py36h01d97ff_0\n" "pysocks=1.7.0=py36_0\n" "python=3.6.7=h94afb7f_1005\n" "python-dateutil=2.8.0=py_0\n" "pytz=2019.2=py_0\n" "pyzmq=18.0.2=py36hee98d25_2\n" "readline=8.0=hcfe32e1_0\n" "requests=2.22.0=py36_1\n" "requests-oauthlib=1.2.0=py_0\n" "retrying=1.3.3=py_2\n" "s3transfer=0.2.1=py36_0\n" "scipy=1.3.1=py36hab3da7d_2\n" "seaborn=0.9.0=py_1\n" "send2trash=1.5.0=py_0\n" "setuptools=41.0.1=py36_0\n" "simplejson=3.16.1=py36h470a237_0\n" "six=1.12.0=py36_1000\n" "smart_open=1.8.4=py_0\n" "snowballstemmer=1.9.0=py_0\n" "sortedcollections=1.1.2=py_0\n" "sortedcontainers=2.1.0=py_0\n" "spacy=2.1.8=py36h770b8ee_0\n" "sqlite=3.29.0=hb7d70f7_0\n" "srsly=0.0.7=py36h6de7cb9_0\n" "statsmodels=0.10.1=py36heacc8b8_0\n" "sumy=0.8.1=pypi_0\n" "tensorboard=1.13.1=py36_0\n" "tensorflow=1.13.1=py36_1\n" "tensorflow-estimator=1.13.0=py36h24bf2e0_0\n" "termcolor=1.1.0=py_2\n" "terminado=0.8.2=py36_0\n" "testpath=0.4.2=py_1001\n" "thinc=7.0.8=py36h770b8ee_0\n" "tk=8.6.9=h2573ce8_1002\n" "tornado=6.0.3=py36h01d97ff_0\n" "tqdm=4.33.0=py_0\n" "traitlets=4.3.2=py36_1000\n" "tweepy=3.8.0=py_0\n" "urllib3=1.25.3=py36_0\n" "wasabi=0.2.2=py_0\n" "wcwidth=0.1.7=py_1\n" "webencodings=0.5.1=py_1\n" "werkzeug=0.15.5=py_0\n" "wheel=0.33.4=py36_0\n" "xz=5.2.4=h1de35cc_1001\n" "zeromq=4.3.2=h6de7cb9_2\n" "zlib=1.2.11=h01d97ff_1005\n" "zstd=1.4.0=ha9f0a20_0") matches = regex.finditer(test_str) for match_num, match in enumerate(matches, start=1): print(f"Match {match_num} was found at {match.start()}-{match.end()}: {match.group()}") for group_num, group in enumerate(match.groups(), start=1): print(f"Group {group_num} found at {match.start(group_num)}-{match.end(group_num)}: {group}")

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 Python, please visit: https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html