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]
  • Character class intersection
    [\w&&[^\d]]
  • 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

Generated Code

use strict; my $str = '109 - 111 Wharfside Street 40-42 Parkway 25b-26 Sun Street 43a Garden Walk 6/7 Marine Road 10 - 12 Acacia Ave 4513 3RD STREET CIRCLE WEST 0 1/2 Fifth Avenue 194-03 1/2 50th Avenue'; my $regex = qr/^\s*(?:(?:(?<A_Addition_to_address_1>.*?),\s*)?(?:No\.\s*)?(?<A_House_number_1>\p{N}+[a-zA-Z]?(?:\s*[-\/\p{P}]\s*\p{N}+[a-zA-Z]?)*)\s*,?\s*(?<A_Street_name_1>(?:[a-zA-Z]\s*|\p{N}\p{L}{2,}\s\p{L})\S[^,#]*?(?<!\s))\s*(?:(?:[,\/]|(?=#))\s*(?!\s*No\.)(?<A_Addition_to_address_2>(?!\s).*?))?|(?:(?<B_Addition_to_address_1>.*?),\s*(?=.*[,\/]))?(?!\s*No\.)(?<B_Street_name>\S\s*\S(?:[^,#](?!\b\p{N}+\s))*?(?<!\s))\s*[\/,]?\s*(?:\sNo\.)?\s+(?<B_House_number>\p{N}+\s*-?[a-zA-Z]?(?:\s*[-\/\p{P}]?\s*\p{N}+(?:\s*[-a-zA-Z])?)*|[IVXLCDM]+(?!.*\b\p{N}+\b))(?<!\s)\s*(?:(?:[,\/]|(?=#)|\s)\s*(?!\s*No\.)\s*(?<B_Addition_to_address_2>(?!\s).*?))?)\s*$/mup; 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