Regular Expressions 101

Save & Manage Regex

  • Current Version: 1
  • Save & Share
  • Community Library

Flavor

  • PCRE2 (PHP)
  • ECMAScript (JavaScript)
  • Python
  • Golang
  • Java
  • .NET 7.0 (C#)
  • Rust
  • PCRE (Legacy)
  • Regex Flavor Guide

Function

  • Match
  • Substitution
  • List
  • Unit Tests
Sponsors
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"^(?P<datetime>\d{2}/\d{2}/\d{4}[^-]+)\s+-\s+(?P<name>[^:]+):\s+(?P<message>[\s\S]+?)(?=^\d{2}|\Z)", flags=re.MULTILINE) test_str = ("03/01/2021, 10:06 - Messages and calls are end-to-end encrypted. No one outside of this chat, not even WhatsApp, can read or listen to them. Tap to learn more.\n" "21/06/2018, 07:47 - +234 806 679 5599 created group \"Keremor Barging\"\n" "03/01/2021, 08:48 - John C. added you\n" "03/01/2021, 08:49 - +234 703 803 5040: Waiting for this message\n" "03/01/2021, 08:49 - +234 703 803 5040: Waiting for this 03/01/2021 message\n" "04/01/2021, 08:06 - +234 703 803 5040:Ugo-Ocha Terminal. \n\n" "No STS operation was carried out.\n\n" "Total volume Onboard Ugo Ocha As at 0800hrs 04/01/2021 remain the same") 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