regex101: PCRE (Legacy) Match Workspace

^start of line

Group firstchar(?<firstchar>(?=[A-Za-z]))

Positive Lookahead(?=[A-Za-z])

Character Class[A-Za-z]

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

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

Group 2((?<alphachars>[A-Za-z])|(?<specialchars>[A-Za-z]['-](?=[A-Za-z]))|(?<spaces> (?=[A-Za-z])))*

*repeats the group contents below any number of times:

1st Alternative(?<alphachars>[A-Za-z])

Group alphachars(?<alphachars>[A-Za-z])

Character Class[A-Za-z]

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

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

2nd Alternative(?<specialchars>[A-Za-z]['-](?=[A-Za-z]))

Group specialchars(?<specialchars>[A-Za-z]['-](?=[A-Za-z]))

Character Class[A-Za-z]

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

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

Character Class['-]

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

-the literal - (45₁₀ / 55₈ / 2D₁₆)

Positive Lookahead(?=[A-Za-z])

Character Class[A-Za-z]

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

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

3rd Alternative(?<spaces> (?=[A-Za-z]))

Group spaces(?<spaces> (?=[A-Za-z]))

the literal (32₁₀ / 40₈ / 20₁₆)

Positive Lookahead(?=[A-Za-z])

Character Class[A-Za-z]

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

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

$end of line

Global pattern flags

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

m modifier: multiline. Causes ^ and $ to match the start and end of each line, not only the start and end of the string

Search reference

Regular Expression

^(?<firstchar>(?=[A-Za-z]))((?<alphachars>[A-Za-z])|(?<specialchars>[A-Za-z]['-](?=[A-Za-z]))|(?<spaces> (?=[A-Za-z])))*$

Test String
New

#First Name must contain letters only. It may contain spaces, hyphens, or apostrophes.
First name-and hy-phen's
#It must begin with letters.
First name
1shouldn't match
'shouldn't match
#All other characters and numbers are not valid.
Should match
Should not m@tch
Should not m#tch
#Special characters ‘ and – cannot be together (e.g. John’-s is not allowed)
Allow'd
NotAllow-'d
NotAllow'-d
#An alphabet should be present before and after the special characters ‘ and – (e.g. John ‘s is not allowed)
Allow'd
Also A'llowed
A'llowd
Not Allowd'
Not 'Allowd
#Two consecutive spaces are not allowed (e.g. Annia St is not allowed)

Regular Expressions 101

Regular Expression

Test String
New

Substitution
Processing...

Regular Expression

Test StringNew

SubstitutionProcessing...

Test String
New

Substitution
Processing...