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

Language

Generated Code

import re regex = re.compile(r"(<.+?)(?<=\s)on[a-z]+\s*=\s*(?:(['\"])(?!\2).+?\2|(?:\S+?\(.*?\)(?=[\s>])))(.*?>)", flags=re.IGNORECASE) test_str = ("<meta name=\"keywords\" content=\"keyword1, keyword2, keyword3\">\n" "<a href=\"something\" onclick= \"bad()\">text</a> onclick not in tags\n" "<a href=\"something\" onclick =bad()>text</a>\n" "<a href=\"something\" onclick=bad('test')>text</a>\n" "<a href=\"something\" onclick=bad(\"test\")>text</a>\n" "<a href=\"something\" onclick=\"bad()\" >text</a>\n" "<a href=\"http://mydomain.com/index.php?oninaval=12\" class=\"titi\">text</a>\n" "What if I write john+onelia=love forever?\n\n" " <a href=\"something\" onclick=\"bad()\">text</a> onclick not in tags \n" " <a href=\"something\" onclick=bad()>text</a>\n" " <a href=\"something\" onclick=\"bad()\" >text</a>\n\n" "<a href=\"something\" onclick=a++ >text</a>\n\n" "onclick=\"asd <span class=\"myclass\"> not in tag too.</span>\n" "<!-- onclick=\" --><a href=\"something\" onclick= \"bad()\">text</a>\n" "<textarea><enter onclick=\"dothat()\" text here></textarea>\n" "yoko ono=\"john lennon\"\n" "<img src=\"/images/img1.jpg\" alt=\"onclick=thegood() onclick=thebad() \"/>\n" "<img alt=\"onclick=\" src=/images/theugly.jpg> the most important part of the message <p class=\"disappears\"></p>\n\n" "<a href=\"\" onmouseover=a=7>button1</a>\n" "<a href=\"something\" onclick=a++>text</a>\n" "<a href=\"something\" onclick=a<<1>text</a>\n" "<a href=\"\" onmouseover=\"alert(a);\">button2</a>") 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