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

/
/
gmix

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

import java.util.regex.Matcher; import java.util.regex.Pattern; public class Example { public static void main(String[] args) { final String regex = "(?<Test><(?<Node>\\S+)(>\\s*<\\/\\k<Node>>|\\s*\\/>))|(?<test2><(?<Outer>\\S+)>\\s+((?&Test)|(?&test2)*\n" + ")\\s+<\\/\\k<Outer>>)"; final String string = "<root>\n" + "<tag1>Good</tag1>\n" + "<tag2 element=\"Good\"></tag2>\n" + "<tag3 element=\"Good\" />\n" + "<tag4></tag4>\n" + "<tag13>\n" + "</tag13>\n" + "<tag5 />\n" + "<tag6/>\n" + "<tag7>\n" + " <tag7.1>good</tag7.1>\n" + "</tag7>\n" + "<tag8>\n" + " <tag8.1></tag8.1>\n" + "</tag8>\n" + "<tag9>\n" + " <tag9.1 />\n" + "</tag9>\n" + "<tag10>\n" + " <tag10.1/>\n" + "</tag10>\n" + "<tag10>\n" + " <tag10.1>Wel iets</tag10.1>\n" + "</tag10>\n" + "<tag11>\n" + " <tag11.1 element=\"Good\"/>\n" + "</tag11>\n" + "<tag12>\n" + " <tag12.1></tag12.1>\n" + " <tag12.2>\n" + " <tag12.2.1></tag12.2.1>\n" + " </tag12.2>\n" + "</tag12>\n" + "</root>"; final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex, Pattern.MULTILINE | Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE | Pattern.COMMENTS); 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