Regular Expressions 101

Negative Lookbehind(?<!\S)

\Sany character that is not Unicode whitespace

Negative Lookahead(?!\*+\d)

\*+the literal * (42₁₀ / 52₈ / 2A₁₆) , repeated at least once

\da Unicode decimal digit

Character Class[a-zA-Z]*

*matches any number of characters from the set below:

a-zone character from a (97₁₀) to z (122₁₀) (case sensitive)

A-Zone character from A (65₁₀) to Z (90₁₀) (case sensitive)

\*the literal * (42₁₀ / 52₈ / 2A₁₆)

Character Class[a-zA-Z*]*

*matches any number of characters from the set below:

a-zone character from a (97₁₀) to z (122₁₀) (case sensitive)

A-Zone character from A (65₁₀) to Z (90₁₀) (case sensitive)

*the literal * (42₁₀ / 52₈ / 2A₁₆)

Global pattern flags

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

x modifier: extended. Ignores unescaped whitespace and comments outside character classes

Detailed match information will be displayed here automatically.

Search reference

Regular Expression

(?<!\S)(?!\*+\d)[a-zA-Z]*\*[a-zA-Z*]*

New

(A) Match these:
    *** star* st**r

    (B) Not these:
    800*m *4,500 

    (C) And not these:
    800**m **4,000