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"<span[^>]*>.*?<\/span>", flags=re.MULTILINE) test_str = ("<p>Qualifiers are used to adjust qualities of an object or a variable.</p>\n" "<p>There are two types of qualifiers in C++. CV <span style=\"color: #3665f3;\"><strong>Qualifiers</strong></span> and Storage Duration <span style=\"color: #3665f3;\"><strong>Qualifiers</strong></span>. CV stands for constant and volatile.</p>\n" "<p>CV <span style=\"color: #3665f3;\"><strong>Qualifiers</strong></span></p>\n" "<ul>\n" "<li>const - marks a variable as read-only or immutable.</li>\n" "<li>mutable - is used on data members to make them writable from a const qualified member function.</li>\n" "<li>volatile - mark a variable that may be changed by another process. This is partly deprecated in C++ 20.</li>\n" "</ul>\n" "<p>Storage Duration Qualifiers are used to define the duration or lifetime of a variable. By default, a variable defined within a block has an automatic lifetime.</p>\n" "<p>Storage Duration <span style=\"color: #3665f3;\"><strong>Qualifiers</strong></span></p>\n" "<ul>\n" "<li>static - variables defined to have life <span>beyond</span> the execution of a block. Static variables live for the duration of the program. Commonly used for keeping state between usages between a given function or a method. By default a variable defined outside of any block is static.</li>\n" "<li>register - are variables stored in processor registers. This can make them faster <span style=\"color: #3665f3;\"><strong>Qualifiers</strong></span> and more efficient. This qualifier is taken by the compiler as a suggestion. The compiler may or may not store the variable in a register.</li>\n" "<li>extern variables are defined in a separate translation unit. These are linked with your code with the linker step of the compilation process.</li>\n" "</ul>") 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