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

/
/
gm

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

use strict; my $str = '[conn5695298] query entitydb_20014.chats query: { $query: { $or: [ { receiver_id: "5b91eb3dfe860a5325533467" }, { sender_id: "5b91eb3dfe860a5325533467" } ], send_time: { $gt: 0 } }, $orderby: { send_time: -1 } } planSummary: COLLSCAN, COLLSCAN ntoreturn:120 ntoskip:0 nscanned:0 nscannedObjects:2216688 scanAndOrder:1 keyUpdates:0 writeConflicts:0 numYields:18133 nreturned:0 reslen:20 locks:{ Global: { acquireCount: { r: 36268 }, acquireWaitCount: { r: 49 }, timeAcquiringMicros: { r: 8560 } }, MMAPV1Journal: { acquireCount: { r: 18134 }, acquireWaitCount: { r: 2 }, timeAcquiringMicros: { r: 554 } }, Database: { acquireCount: { r: 18134 } }, Collection: { acquireCount: { R: 18134 } } } 4547ms planSummary: IXSCAN { host: 1, gid: 1, service_code: 1, name: 1, instance: 1 } cursorid:44314245057 keysExamined:20225 docsExamined:20050 cursorExhausted:1 numYields:158 nreturned:20050 reslen:1596954 locks:{ Global: { acquireCount: { r: 318 } }, Database: { acquireCount: { r: 159 } }, Collection: { acquireCount: { r: 159 } } } protocol:op_command 136ms planSummary: IXSCAN { host: 1, gid: 1, service_code: 1, name: 1, instance: 1 } cursorid:44314245057 keysExamined:20225 docsExamined:20050 cursorExhausted:1 numYields:158 nreturned:20050 reslen:1596954 locks:{ Global: 5 }, Database: { acquireCount: { r: 159 } }} }} }}}} }}}}}}, Collection: { acquireCount: { r: 159 } } } protocol:op_command 136ms'; my $regex = qr/locks:(?<locks>\{.*?\}+[\s*\}]+)/mp; if ( $str =~ /$regex/g ) { print "Whole match is ${^MATCH} and its start/end positions can be obtained via \$-[0] and \$+[0]\n"; # print "Capture Group 1 is $1 and its start/end positions can be obtained via \$-[1] and \$+[1]\n"; # print "Capture Group 2 is $2 ... and so on\n"; } # ${^POSTMATCH} and ${^PREMATCH} are also available with the use of '/p' # Named capture groups can be called via $+{name}

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 Perl, please visit: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html