Regular Expressions 101

Pro

1st Alternative(?(DEFINE) (?<first>[\pL\d'’]) (?<other>[-\ \pL\d.'/,’]) ) \b(?&first)(?&other)+\b(*SKIP)(*FAIL)

Definition Group(?(DEFINE) (?<first>[\pL\d'’]) (?<other>[-\ \pL\d.'/,’]) )

Group first(?<first>[\pL\d'’])

Character Class[\pL\d'’]

\pLany Unicode letter

\da Unicode decimal digit

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

’the literal ’ (8217₁₀ / 20031₈ / 2019₁₆)

Group other(?<other>[-\ \pL\d.'/,’])

Character Class[-\ \pL\d.'/,’]

-the literal - (45₁₀ / 55₈ / 2D₁₆)

\ the literal (32₁₀ / 40₈ / 20₁₆)

\pLany Unicode letter

\da Unicode decimal digit

.the literal . (46₁₀ / 56₈ / 2E₁₆)

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

/the literal / (47₁₀ / 57₈ / 2F₁₆)

,the literal , (44₁₀ / 54₈ / 2C₁₆)

’the literal ’ (8217₁₀ / 20031₈ / 2019₁₆)

\ba Unicode word boundary

(?&first)calls group first as a subroutine

(?&other)+calls group other as a subroutine, repeated at least once

\ba Unicode word boundary

(*SKIP)acts like (*PRUNE), but the next unanchored match attempt starts where (*SKIP) was reached instead of at the next subject character

(*FAIL)forces the current match attempt to fail at this position

2nd Alternative.

.any Unicode character (except for line terminators)

Global pattern flags

i modifier: insensitive. Matches without distinguishing uppercase and lowercase letters

u modifier: unicode. Treats the pattern and subject as UTF-16

x modifier: extended. Ignores unescaped whitespace and comments outside character classes

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

No unit tests · Add a test to get started

25 tokens

(?(DEFINE)
    (?<first>[\pL\d'’])
    (?<other>[-\ \pL\d.'/,’])
)
\b(?&first)(?&other)+\b(*SKIP)(*FAIL)|.

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