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

r"
"
gm

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

use strict; my $str = 'Z2S6A1-6X/VSO60 Z2S6B1-6X/VSO60 Z2S6-1-6X/MT Z2S6-1-6X= Z2S6-2-6X=V Z2S6-1-6X/ Z2S6-2-6X/ Z2S6-3-6X/ Z2S6A1-6X/ Z2S6A2-6X/ Z2S6A3-6X/ Z2S6B1-6X/ Z2S6B2-6X/ Z2S6B3-6X/ Z2S6-1-6X/V Z2S6-2-6X/V Z2S6-3-6X/V Z2S6A1-6X/V Z2S6A2-6X/V Z2S6A3-6X/V Z2S6B1-6X/V Z2S6B2-6X/V Z2S6B3-6X/V Z2S6B1-6X/SO40 Z2S6A1-6X/SO40 Z2S6B1-6X/VSO40 Z2S6B3-6X/SO40 Z2S6A2-6X/SO40 Z2S6A1-6X/SO60 Z2S6A2-6X/SO60 Z2S6B3-6X/SO60 Z2S6B2-6X/SO60 Z2S6B1-6X/SO60 Z2S6A3-6X/SO40 Z2S6B2-6X/SO40 Z2S6A1-6X/SO55 Z2S6A1-6X/VSO40 Z2S6-2-6X/SO55 Z2S6B2-6X/SO55 Z2S6-1-6X/SO55 Z2S6-1-6X//62 Z2S6A3-6X/SO60 Z2S6A2-6X//62 Z2S6B1-6X/SO55 Z2S6-1-6X/V/62 Z2S6A2-6X/SO55 Z2S6-1-6X/VSO55 Z2S6-4-6X/ Z2S6A3-6X/VSO40 Z2S6-3-6X/SO55 Z2S6-1-6X/=TA Z2S6-3-6X/=TA Z2S6B1-6X//62 Z2S6A1-6X//62 Z2S6A1-6X/VSO55 Z2S6-4-6X/V Z2S6A1-6X/V/62 Z2S6-1-6X/VSO150 Z2S6B1-6X/V/62 Z2S6-2-6X//62 Z2S6-2-6X/SO150 Z2S6-2-6X/V/62 Z2S6A3-6X/SO55 Z2S6-3-6X/SO150 Z2S6-1-6X/V/60 Z2S6A2-6X/SO150 Z2S6B2-6X/VSO60 Z2S6A2-6X/VSO60 Z2S6-1-6X/SO150 Z2S6B3-6X/SO55 Z2S6A2-6X/VSO150 Z2S6-1-6X=V/60 Z2S6A2-6X/VJ3 Z2S6B1-6X/VJ3 Z2S6-1-6X/VJ3 Z2S6-1-6X/J3 Z2S6-1-6X/V/60J3 Z2S6-2-6X/VJ3 Z2S6-2-6X/J3SO150 Z2S6B1-6X/SO150 Z2S6-2-6X/VSO150 Z2S6A3-6X/SO150 Z2S6A3-6X/J3SO55 Z2S6A4-6X/V Z2S6A1-6X/J3 Z2S6-1-6X/J3SO55 Z2S6-2-6X/J3 Z2S6B1-6X/J3 Z2S6A2-6X/VSO40 Z2S6-3-6X/J3=TA Z2S6-3-6X/V/60 Z2S6A4-6X/ Z2S6A1-6X/MTJ3 Z2S6B1-6X/V*ET-BHS Z2S6A1MVPP-SA/50350BAR '; my $regex = qr/^(?P<mounting_type>Z)(?P<number_of_function>2)(?P<unit_type>S)(?P<unit_size>6)(?P<function_in_port>A|B|-)(?P<cracking_pressure>1|2|3|4)(?P<sep_1>-)(?P<unit_series>6X)(?P<sep_2>/|=)(?P<seal_material>V|)(?P<surface_coating>J3|)(?P<pipe_port>/60|)(?P<special_version>SO40|SO55|SO60|SO150|)(?P<additional_details>(.|[0-9])*)$ /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