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
Processing...

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

import re regex = re.compile(r"^([a-zA-Z]+)\s*\{(.*?)}(?=\n[a-zA-Z]+\s*{\n|\Z)", flags=re.MULTILINE | re.DOTALL) test_str = ("BackdropNode {\n" " inputs 0\n" " name BackdropNode6\n" " tile_color 0x555555ff\n" " label RDN\n" " note_font_size 42\n" " xpos -1136\n" " ypos -4272\n" " bdwidth 451\n" " bdheight 529\n" "}\n" "Write {\n" " file \"\\[value project_directory]/_output_/\\[string range \\[file tail \\[value root.name]] 0 20].mov\"\n" " colorspace sRGB\n" " raw true\n" " file_type mov\\{(.*?)\\}\n" " mov64_format \"mov (QuickTime / MOV)\"\n" " mov64_codec AVdh\n" " mov64_dnxhd_codec_profile \"DNxHD 422 8-bit 145Mbit\"\n" " mov64_dnxhr_codec_profile \"SQ 4:2:2 8-bit\"\n" " mov64_pixel_format {{0} \"yuv420p\\tYCbCr 4:2:0 8-bit\"}\n" " mov64_quality High\n" " mov64_advanced 1\n" " mov64_write_timecode true\n" " mov64_gop_size 12\n" " mov64_b_frames 0\n" " mov64_bitrate 20000\n" " mov64_bitrate_tolerance 40000000\n" " mov64_quality_min 2\n" " mov64_quality_max 31\n" " render_order 3\n" " checkHashOnRead false\n" " version 132\n" " in_colorspace scene_linear\n" " out_colorspace scene_linear\n" " name Write2\n" " xpos -1025\n" " ypos 2230\n" "}") matches = regex.finditer(test_str) for match_num, match in enumerate(matches, start=1): print(f"Match {match_num} was found at {match.start()}-{match.end()}: {match.group()}") for group_num, group in enumerate(match.groups(), start=1): print(f"Group {group_num} found at {match.start(group_num)}-{match.end(group_num)}: {group}")

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 Python, please visit: https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html