Regular Expressions 101

Group 1(\b((?:https?|ftp):\/\/|www\.)([0-9A-Za-z]+\.?)+\b)

\ban ASCII word boundary

Group 2((?:https?|ftp):\/\/|www\.)

1st Alternative(?:https?|ftp):\/\/

Non-Capturing Group(?:https?|ftp)

1st Alternativehttps?

httpthe literal text http (case sensitive)

s?optionally matches the literal s (115₁₀ / 163₈ / 73₁₆) (case sensitive)

2nd Alternativeftp

ftpthe literal text ftp (case sensitive)

:the literal : (58₁₀ / 72₈ / 3A₁₆)

\/the literal / (47₁₀ / 57₈ / 2F₁₆)

2nd Alternativewww\.

wwwthe literal text www (case sensitive)

\.the literal . (46₁₀ / 56₈ / 2E₁₆)

Group 3([0-9A-Za-z]+\.?)+

+repeats the group contents below at least once:

Character Class[0-9A-Za-z]+

+matches at least one character from the set below:

0-9one character from 0 (48₁₀) to 9 (57₁₀)

A-Zone character from A (65₁₀) to Z (90₁₀) (case sensitive)

a-zone character from a (97₁₀) to z (122₁₀) (case sensitive)

\.?optionally matches the literal . (46₁₀ / 56₈ / 2E₁₆)

\ban ASCII word boundary

Global pattern flags

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

Detailed match information will be displayed here automatically.

Search reference

Regular Expression

(\b((?:https?|ftp):\/\/|www\.)([0-9A-Za-z]+\.?)+\b)

New

http://www.google.com
www.google.com