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 $str = '# TEST ## List of valid domains: www.google.com google.com mkyong123.com mkyong-info.com sub.mkyong.com sub.mkyong-info.com mkyong.com.au g.co a.12E mkyong.t.t.co xn--stackoverflow.com stackoverflow.xn--com xn--d1ai6ai.xn--p1ai stackoverflow.co.uk a.xn--wgbh1c 1.2.3.4.com x.XN--VERMGENSBERATUNG-PWB abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com www.abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcde.abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com ## List of invalid domains: http://google.com http://www.google.com dot. space com under_score.com underscore.c_om -dash.com dash-.com sub.-dash.com sub-.dash.com -.com -com .com com mx.gmail.com. mkyong.t.t.c mkyong,com mkyong.com/users a.123 x.XN--VERMGENSBERATUNG-PWBB abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijkk.com www.abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijkk.co.uk abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcde.abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.comm 0123456789 +-.,!@#$%^&*();\\\\/|<>\\"\\\' 12345 -98.7 3.141 .6180 9,000 +42 HELP https://github.com/c-hive/guides/blob/57cbbf72f1152214a160f9be8a57e2c4dc868cfd/etc/regex.md#domains # allowed chars [\\w\\d\\.\\-] EXPLAIN # once upon a time... ^ # doesn\'t contain underscore (this is so that we can use \\w alter on) (?![\\w\\d\\.\\-]*?_[\\w\\d\\.\\-]*?) # doesn\'t contain dash at the beginning of a label (?!(?:[\\d\\w]+?\\.)?\\-[\\w\\d\\.\\-]*?) # doesn\'t contain dash at the end of a label (?![\\w\\d]+?\\-\\.(?:[\\d\\w\\.\\-]+?)) # starts with a non-limit char (?=[\\w\\d\\]) # contains at least 1 dot (?=[\\w\\d\\.\\-]*?\\.+[\\w\\d\\.\\-]*?) # not longer than 253 chars (?![\\w\\d\\.\\-]{253}) # doesn\'t contain a label longer than 63 char (?!(?:\\.?[\\w\\d\\-\\.]*?[\\w\\d\\-]{64,}\\.)+?) # allowed chars [\\w\\d\\.\\-]+? # TLD is not digit-only (?<![\\w\\d\\-\\.]*?\\.[\\d]+?) # TLD is at least 2 characters (?<=[\\w\\d\\-]{2,}) # TLD is at most 24 characters (?<![\\w\\d\\-]{25}) # the end &'; my $regex = qr/^(?!.*?_.*?)(?!(?:[\d\w]+?\.)?\-[\w\d\.\-]*?)(?![\w\d]+?\-\.(?:[\d\w\.\-]+?))(?=[\w\d])(?=[\w\d\.\-]*?\.+[\w\d\.\-]*?)(?![\w\d\.\-]{254})(?!(?:\.?[\w\d\-\.]*?[\w\d\-]{64,}\.)+?)[\w\d\.\-]+?(?<![\w\d\-\.]*?\.[\d]+?)(?<=[\w\d\-]{2,})(?<![\w\d\-]{25})$/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