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

/
/
g

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

# coding=utf8 # the above tag defines encoding for this document and is for Python 2.x compatibility import re regex = r"box(?!-shadow) " test_str = ("positive lookahead\n" "box(?=-shadow)\n\n" "https://youtu.be/aIEjh0YsxWA?t=309\n" "// select box only if what comes after it IS -shadow\n\n" "box-sizing\n" "shape-shadow\n" "------------------------------------------------------------------\n" "negative lookahead\n" "box(?!-shadow) \n\n" "// select box only if what comes after it IS NOT shadow\n\n" "box-sizing\n" "shape-shadow\n\n" "------------------------------------------------------------------\n" "negative look behind\n" "(?<!jeffery).+\n\n" "https://youtu.be/aIEjh0YsxWA?t=212\n" "// this string cannot come before the @\n\n" "jeffrey@envato.com\n" "joe@envato.com\n\n" "------------------------------------------------------------------\n" "positive look behind\n" "(?<=box-)sizing\n\n" "https://youtu.be/aIEjh0YsxWA?t=337\n" "// only want to select 'sizing' if what comes before it is 'box' \n" "// select sizing as long as what comes before it is 'box'\n\n" "box-sizing\n" "shape-sizing\n\n" "------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n" "negative look behind\n" "(?<!box-)sizing\n\n" "// anything can come before it except 'box'\n\n" "box-sizing\n" "shape-sizing\n\n" "-----------------------------------------------------------------\n" "positive lookahead \n" "@.+(?=\\.[a-z]{2,4})\n\n" "// Matches a group after your main expression without including it in the result\n\n" "wilson@gmail.com\n" "frank@france.fr\n" "joe@paris.france\n\n") matches = re.finditer(regex, test_str) 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