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

$re = '/({[^}]+})+, -- (.+)/m'; $str = '{ spell = 126, type = "ability"}, -- Eye of Kilrogg { spell = 172, type = "ability", requiresTarget = true, debuff = true}, -- Corruption { spell = 686, type = "ability", requiresTarget = true}, -- Shadow Bolt { spell = 698, type = "ability"}, -- Ritual of Summoning { spell = 702, type = "ability", requiresTarget = true, debuff = true}, -- Curse of Weakness { spell = 710, type = "ability", requiresTarget = true, debuff = true}, -- Banish { spell = 755, type = "ability"}, -- Health Funnel { spell = 980, type = "ability", requiresTarget = true, debuff = true}, -- Agony { spell = 1714, type = "ability", requiresTarget = true, debuff = true}, -- Curse of Tongues { spell = 3110, type = "ability", requiresTarget = true}, -- Firebolt { spell = 3716, type = "ability", requiresTarget = true}, -- Consuming Shadows { spell = 5484, type = "ability"}, -- Howl of Terror { spell = 5782, type = "ability", requiresTarget = true, debuff = true}, -- Fear { spell = 6358, type = "ability", requiresTarget = true}, -- Seduction { spell = 6360, type = "ability", requiresTarget = true}, -- Whiplash { spell = 6789, type = "ability", requiresTarget = true, talent = 14 }, -- Mortal Coil'; preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0); // Print the entire match result var_dump($matches);

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 PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php