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

/
/
gm

Test String

Code Generator

Generated Code

# coding=utf8 # the above tag defines encoding for this document and is for Python 2.x compatibility import re regex = r"\d{1,3}\.\s[a-zA-Z\d\?\.\s].+$\n\s(a?\)\s[a-zA-Z].+).+\n\s(b?\)\s[A-Za-z].+).+\n\s(c\).[a-zA-Z].+)" test_str = ("617. What would you like to eat for lunch? …, I don’t mind.\n" " a) Nothing\n" " b) Anything\n" " c) Something\n" "618. Where do you want to go on holiday? … with a beach.\n" " a) Somewhere\n" " b) Nowhere\n" "613. You look familiar. Haven’t I seen you … before?\n" " a) nowhere\n" " b) anywhere\n" " c) somewhere\n" "614. She left the room without saying … .\n" " a) nothing\n" " b) anything\n" " c) everything\n" "615. I have never been … more beautiful than Thailand.\n" " a) somewhere\n" " b) nowhere\n" " c) anywhere\n" "616. Who was at the party? …, so something very bad must have happened.\n" " a) No one\n" " b) Anyone\n" " c) Everyone\n" "617. What would you like to eat for lunch? …, I don’t mind.\n" " a) Nothing\n" " b) Anything\n" " c) Something\n" "618. Where do you want to go on holiday? … with a beach.\n" " a) Somewhere\n" " b) Nowhere\n" " c) Anywhere\n" "619. I have … to say to you. Goodbye!\n" " a) nothing\n" " b) everything\n" " c) something\n" "620. I felt so good being on stage. I was sure that … was looking at me.\n" " a) someone\n" " b) everyone\n" " c) no one\n" "621. Can you please … some money until next week?\n" " a) lend \n" " b) borrow\n" " c) give\n" "622. I decided to invest in the commodities as the … on offer from bank was extremely low.\n" " a) tax \n" " b) rent \n" " c) interest\n" "623. Many retailers refuse to exchange purchases unless you can show them your … .\n" " a) receipt\n" " b) bill\n" " c) Anywhere\n" "619. I have … to say to you. Goodbye!\n" " a) nothing") matches = re.finditer(regex, test_str, re.MULTILINE) for matchNum, match in enumerate(matches, start=1): print ("Match {matchNum} was found at {start}-{end}: {match}".format(matchNum = matchNum, start = match.start(), end = match.end(), match = match.group())) for groupNum in range(0, len(match.groups())): groupNum = groupNum + 1 print ("Group {groupNum} found at {start}-{end}: {group}".format(groupNum = groupNum, start = match.start(groupNum), end = match.end(groupNum), group = match.group(groupNum))) # Note: for Python 2.7 compatibility, use ur"" to prefix the regex and u"" to prefix the test string and substitution.

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