regex101: PCRE (Legacy) Substitution Workspace

1st Alternative(?<!\\)(?:\\{2})*(?:"[^\\"]*(?:\\.[^"\\]*)*"|'[^\\']*(?:\\.[^'\\]*)*')(*SKIP)(*F)

Negative Lookbehind(?<!\\)

\\the literal \ (92₁₀ / 134₈ / 5C₁₆)

Non-Capturing Group(?:\\{2})*

*repeats the group contents below any number of times:

\\{2}the literal \ (92₁₀ / 134₈ / 5C₁₆) , repeated exactly 2 times

Non-Capturing Group(?:"[^\\"]*(?:\\.[^"\\]*)*"|'[^\\']*(?:\\.[^'\\]*)*')

1st Alternative"[^\\"]*(?:\\.[^"\\]*)*"

"the literal " (34₁₀ / 42₈ / 22₁₆)

Negated Character Class[^\\"]*

*matches any number of characters outside the set below:

\\the literal \ (92₁₀ / 134₈ / 5C₁₆)

"the literal " (34₁₀ / 42₈ / 22₁₆)

Non-Capturing Group(?:\\.[^"\\]*)*

*repeats the group contents below any number of times:

\\the literal \ (92₁₀ / 134₈ / 5C₁₆)

.any character (except for line terminators)

Negated Character Class[^"\\]*

*matches any number of characters outside the set below:

"the literal " (34₁₀ / 42₈ / 22₁₆)

\\the literal \ (92₁₀ / 134₈ / 5C₁₆)

"the literal " (34₁₀ / 42₈ / 22₁₆)

2nd Alternative'[^\\']*(?:\\.[^'\\]*)*'

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

Negated Character Class[^\\']*

*matches any number of characters outside the set below:

\\the literal \ (92₁₀ / 134₈ / 5C₁₆)

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

Non-Capturing Group(?:\\.[^'\\]*)*

*repeats the group contents below any number of times:

\\the literal \ (92₁₀ / 134₈ / 5C₁₆)

.any character (except for line terminators)

Negated Character Class[^'\\]*

*matches any number of characters outside the set below:

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

\\the literal \ (92₁₀ / 134₈ / 5C₁₆)

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

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

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

2nd Alternative\h+

\h+any horizontal whitespace character, repeated at least once

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

(?<!\\)(?:\\{2})*(?:"[^\\"]*(?:\\.[^"\\]*)*"|'[^\\']*(?:\\.[^'\\]*)*')(*SKIP)(*F)|\h+

New

2 + 2
2+2
f( " ")
f(" ")
f("Test \"mystring\" .")
f("Test \"mystring\" .")
f("' ",   " ")
f("' "," ")

Regular Expressions 101

Regular Expression

Extraction