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

/
/
gmu

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

import java.util.regex.Matcher; import java.util.regex.Pattern; public class Example { public static void main(String[] args) { final String regex = "^(?![ ])(?!.*(?:\\d|[ ]{2}|[!$%^&*()_+|~=`\\{\\}\\[\\]:\";<>?,\\/]))(?:(?:e|da|do|das|dos|de|d'|D'|la|las|el|los|l')\\s*?|(?:[A-ZàáâäãåąčćęèéêëėįìíîïłńòóôöõøùúûüųūÿýżźñçčšžÀÁÂÄÃÅĄĆČĖĘÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏĮŁŃÒÓÔÖÕØÙÚÛÜŲŪŸÝŻŹÑßÇŒÆČŠŽ∂ð'][^\\s]*\\s*?)(?!.*[ ]$))+$"; final String string = "Maria Silva\n" + "Maria silva\n" + "maria Silva\n" + "MariaSilva\n" + " Maria Silva\n" + "Maria Silva \n" + "Maria da Silva\n" + "Marina Silva\n" + "Maria / Silva\n" + "Maria . Silva\n" + "Maria Silva\n" + "Maria G. Silva\n" + "Maria McDuffy\n" + "Getúlio Dornelles Vargas\n" + "Maria das Flores\n" + "John Smith\n" + "John D'Largy\n" + "John Doe-Smith\n" + "John Doe Smith\n" + "Hector Sausage-Hausen\n" + "Mathias d'Arras\n" + "Martin Luther King Jr.\n" + "Ai Wong\n" + "Chao Chang\n" + "Alzbeta Bara\n" + "Marcos Assunção\n" + "Maria da Silva e Silva\n" + "Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira\n" + "Natalia maria\n" + "Natalia aria\n" + "Natalia orea\n" + "Maria dornelas\n" + "Samuel eto'\n" + "Maria da Costa e Silva\n" + "Samuel Eto'o\n" + "María Antonieta de las Nieves\n" + "Eugène\n" + "Antòny de Homé April\n" + "àntony de Home ùpril\n" + "Antony de Home Aprìl\n" + "Antony1 de Home Ap*ril\n" + "Ap*ril Willians\n" + "Antony_ de Home Apr+il\n" + "Ant_ony de Home Apr#il\n" + "Antony@ de Ho@me Apr^il\n" + "Pierre de l'Estache\n" + "Pierre de L'Estoile\n" + "Akihito\n"; final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex, Pattern.MULTILINE | Pattern.UNICODE_CASE); final Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(string); while (matcher.find()) { System.out.println("Full match: " + matcher.group(0)); for (int i = 1; i <= matcher.groupCount(); i++) { System.out.println("Group " + i + ": " + matcher.group(i)); } } } }

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 Java, please visit: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/regex/Pattern.html