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

/
/
gmi

Test String

Code Generator

Generated Code

import java.util.regex.Matcher; import java.util.regex.Pattern; public class Example { public static void main(String[] args) { final String regex = "^(([A-Z]{1,2}\\d[A-Z\\d]?|ASCN|STHL|TDCU|BBND|[BFS]IQQ|PCRN|TKCA) ?\\d[A-Z]{2}|BFPO ?\\d{1,4}|(KY\\d|MSR|VG|AI)[ -]?\\d{4}|[A-Z]{2} ?\\d{2}|GE ?CX|GIR ?0A{2}|SAN ?TA1)$"; final String string = "AI-1111\n" + "ASCN 1ZZ\n" + "STHL 1ZZ\n" + "TDCU 1ZZ\n" + "BBND 1ZZ\n" + "BIQQ 1ZZ\n" + "FIQQ 1ZZ\n" + "GX11 1ZZ\n" + "PCRN 1ZZ\n" + "SIQQ 1ZZ\n" + "TKCA 1ZZ\n" + "BFPO 11\n" + "ZZ 11\n" + "GE CX\n" + "KY1-1111\n" + "VG1111\n" + "MSR 1111\n" + "A1A 1AA\n" + "A1 1AA\n" + "A11 1AA\n" + "AA1 1AA\n" + "AA1A 1AA\n" + "AA11 1AA\n" + "A1A1AA\n" + "A11AA\n" + "A111AA\n" + "AA11AA\n" + "AA1A1AA\n" + "AA111AA\n" + "GIR 0AA\n" + "GIR0AA\n" + "BFPO 1\n" + "BFPO 11\n" + "BFPO 111\n" + "BFPO 1111\n" + "SAN TA1"; final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex, Pattern.MULTILINE | Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE); final Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(string); while (matcher.find()) { System.out.println("Full match: " + matcher.group(0)); for (int i = 1; i <= matcher.groupCount(); i++) { System.out.println("Group " + i + ": " + matcher.group(i)); } } } }

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 Java, please visit: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/regex/Pattern.html