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 = '# Virtual Hosts # # Required modules: mod_log_config # If you want to maintain multiple domains/hostnames on your # machine you can setup VirtualHost containers for them. Most configurations # use only name-based virtual hosts so the server doesn\\\'t need to worry about # IP addresses. This is indicated by the asterisks in the directives below. # # Please see the documentation at # <URL:http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/vhosts/> # for further details before you try to setup virtual hosts. # # You may use the command line option \\\'-S\\\' to verify your virtual host # configuration. # # Use name-based virtual hosting. # ##NameVirtualHost *:80 # # VirtualHost example: # Almost any Apache directive may go into a VirtualHost container. # The first VirtualHost section is used for all requests that do not # match a ##ServerName or ##ServerAlias in any <VirtualHost> block. # ##<VirtualHost *:80> ##ServerAdmin webmaster@dummy-host.example.com ##DocumentRoot "D:/xampp/htdocs/dummy-host.example.com" ##ServerName dummy-host.example.com ##ServerAlias www.dummy-host.example.com ##ErrorLog "logs/dummy-host.example.com-error.log" ##CustomLog "logs/dummy-host.example.com-access.log" common ##</VirtualHost> ##<VirtualHost *:80> ##ServerAdmin webmaster@dummy-host2.example.com ##DocumentRoot "D:/xampp/htdocs/dummy-host2.example.com" ##ServerName dummy-host2.example.com ##ErrorLog "logs/dummy-host2.example.com-error.log" ##CustomLog "logs/dummy-host2.example.com-access.log" common ##</VirtualHost> ##<VirtualHost *:8080> ##ServerName CI1 ##DocumentRoot D:\\xampp\\htdocs\\codeigniter_1\\public ##</VirtualHost> <VirtualHost *:8080> ServerName CI2 DocumentRoot D:\\xampp\\htdocs\\codeigniter_2\\public </VirtualHost> <VirtualHost *:8080> ServerName CI3 DocumentRoot D:\\xampp\\htdocs\\codeigniter_3\\public </VirtualHost> <VirtualHost *:8080> ServerName CI3 DocumentRoot D:\\Embedded Spaces and spaces at end of line\\htdocs\\codeigniter_3\\public </VirtualHost>'; my $regex = qr~^\s*<VirtualHost\s+[^>]*>\s*ServerName\s+(?P<ServerName>\S+)\s*DocumentRoot\s+(?P<DocumentRoot>.+?)\s*</VirtualHost>~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