Regular Expressions 101

Pro

^start of line

Group 1(.*?)

.*?any Unicode character (except for line terminators), repeated any number of times

Group 2(, | - |: )

1st Alternative,

, the literal text ,

2nd Alternative -

- the literal text -

3rd Alternative:

: the literal text :

Group 3(.*?)

.*?any Unicode character (except for line terminators), repeated any number of times

Negative Lookahead(?!\2)

\2the text saved by group 2

Group 4(, | - |: )

1st Alternative,

, the literal text ,

2nd Alternative -

- the literal text -

3rd Alternative:

: the literal text :

Group 5(.*?)

.*?any Unicode character (except for line terminators), repeated any number of times

Negative Lookahead(?!\2|\4)

1st Alternative\2

\2the text saved by group 2

2nd Alternative\4

\4the text saved by group 4

Group 6(, | - |: )

1st Alternative,

, the literal text ,

2nd Alternative -

- the literal text -

3rd Alternative:

: the literal text :

Group 7(.*)

.*any Unicode character (except for line terminators), repeated any number of times

Global pattern flags

m modifier: multiline. Causes ^ and $ to match the start and end of each line, not only the start and end of the string

g modifier: global. Finds all matches instead of stopping after the first

Detailed match information will be displayed here automatically.

25 tokens

^(.*?)(, | - |: )(.*?)(?!\2)(, | - |: )(.*?)(?!\2|\4)(, | - |: )(.*)

New

lorem ipsum, dolor sit - amet , consectetur : adipiscing elit. Praesent vitae orc

abc: def: ijk, lmno: pqr - stu, wx

lorem ipsum, dolor sit - amet , consectetur : adipiscing elit. Praesent vitae orc

abc: def: ijk, lmno: pqr - stu, wx