regex101: PCRE (Legacy) Match Workspace

<athe literal text <a (case sensitive)

Non-Capturing Group(?:\s+name=".*?")?

?repeats the group contents below at most once:

\s+any whitespace character, repeated at least once

name="the literal text name=" (case sensitive)

.*?any character (except for line terminators), repeated any number of times

"the literal " (34₁₀ / 42₈ / 22₁₆)

\s+any whitespace character, repeated at least once

href=the literal text href= (case sensitive)

.*?any character (except for line terminators), repeated any number of times

#the literal # (35₁₀ / 43₈ / 23₁₆)

.*?any character (except for line terminators), repeated any number of times

>the literal > (62₁₀ / 76₈ / 3E₁₆)

Group 1(.*?)

.*?any character (except for line terminators), repeated any number of times

<the literal < (60₁₀ / 74₈ / 3C₁₆)

\/the literal / (47₁₀ / 57₈ / 2F₁₆)

a>the literal text a> (case sensitive)

Global pattern flags

g modifier: global. Finds all matches instead of stopping after the first

Search reference

Regular Expression

<a(?:\s+name=".*?")?\s+href=.*?#.*?>(.*?)<\/a>

New

<a href="http://example.com/books/1">The Lord of the Rings</a>
<ul>
    <li><a   href="http://example.com/books/1#c1" >Chapter 1</a></li>
    <li><a name="name before href" href="http://example.com/books/1#c2">Chapter 2</a></li>
    <li><a href="http://example.com/books/1#c3" name="name after href">Chapter 3</a></li>
    <li><a href="http://example.com/books/1#cN" target="_blank">Chapter N</a></li>
</ul>
<br><br>
<a href="http://example.com/books/1">Harry Potter</a>
<ul>
    <li><a href="http://example.com/books/2#c1" target="_self">Chapter 1</a></li>
    <li><a href="http://example.com/books/2#c2" name="some have name" title="some others have title" >Chapter 2</a></li>
    <li><a href="http://example.com/books/2#c3">Chapter 3</a></li>
    <li><a href="http://example.com/books/2#cN"  >Chapter N</a></li>
</ul>

Regular Expressions 101

Regular Expression

Substitution