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

/
/
g

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

$re = '/{[^}{]*?"content"\s*:[^}{,]*?imgur\.com[^}{,]*?,[^}{]*?"from"\s*:[^}{,]*?ken_8520[^}{,]*?,[^}{]*?}/'; $str = '{"id": "1508640338717", "displayName": null, "originalarrivaltime": "2017-10-25T14:08:57.128Z", "messagetype": "RichText", "version": 1508640338717, "content": "<a href=\\"https://i.imgur.com/RTzSZiY.jpeg\\">https://i.imgur.com/RTzSZiY.jpeg</a><e_m ts=\\"1508940494\\" ts_ms=\\"1508940494784\\" a=\\"live:ken_8520\\" t=\\"61\\"/>", "conversationid": "8:markv", "from": "8:live:ken_8520", "properties": null, "amsreferences": null}, {"id": "1508454757179", "displayName": null, "originalarrivaltime": "2017-10-23T10:29:14.857Z", "messagetype": "RichText", "version": 1508454757179, "content": "<a href=\\"https://i.imgur.com/hhSOfJu.jpeg\\">https://i.imgur.com/hhSOfJu.jpeg</a><e_m ts=\\"1508754504\\" ts_ms=\\"1508754504997\\" a=\\"live:ken_8520\\" t=\\"61\\"/>", "conversationid": "8:markv", "from": "8:live:ken_8520", "properties": null, "amsreferences": null}, {"id": "1508405154918", "displayName": null, "originalarrivaltime": "2017-10-14T18:19:13.66Z", "messagetype": "RichText", "version": 1508405154918, "content": "<a href=\\"https://i.imgur.com/u1QFzVu.gif\\">https://i.imgur.com/u1QFzVu.gif</a>", "conversationid": "8:markv", "from": "8:live:ken_8520", "properties": null, "amsreferences": null}, {"id": "1515194882829", "displayName": null, "originalarrivaltime": "2018-01-05T20:41:19.069Z", "messagetype": "RichText", "version": 1515194882829, "content": "<a href=\\"https://i.imgur.com/IxcxW.gif\\">https://i.imgur.com/IxcxW.gif</a>", "conversationid": "8:markv", "from": "8:live:ken_8520", "properties": { "urlpreviews": "[{\\"key\\":\\"https://i.imgur.com/IxcxW.gif\\",\\"value\\":{\\"url\\":\\"https://i.imgur.com/IxcxW.gif\\",\\"size\\":\\"499834\\",\\"status_code\\":\\"200\\",\\"content_type\\":\\"image/gif\\",\\"site\\":\\"i.imgur.com\\",\\"category\\":\\"generic\\",\\"favicon\\":\\"https://neu1-urlp.secure.skypeassets.com/static/imgur-16x16.ico\\",\\"favicon_meta\\":{\\"width\\":16,\\"height\\":16},\\"thumbnail\\":\\"https://neu1-urlp.secure.skypeassets.com/img1/48c8cb02-cbff-4f3a-b7da-2c140a8d1b24.gif\\",\\"thumbnail_meta\\":{\\"width\\":216,\\"height\\":207},\\"user_pic\\":\\"\\"}}]" }, "amsreferences": null}'; 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