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

/
/
gsU

Test String

Code Generator

Generated Code

import Foundation // WARNING: You included a flag that Swift doesn't support: U // When this flag is set, it inverts the "greediness" of the quantifiers so that they are not greedy by default, but become greedy if followed by '?'. // As an alternative, this effect can also be achieved by setting a (?U) modifier setting within the pattern or by a question mark behind a quantifier (e.g. .*?). let pattern = #"<([^\/> ]+?)\s*?([^>]*)\s*(?:\/>|>(.*)<\/\1>)"# let regex = try! NSRegularExpression(pattern: pattern, options: .dotMatchesLineSeparators) let testString = #""" <?xml version="1.0"?> <Name attribute = "value" attribute2="value2" >Convert number to string</Name> <CommandLine>Examp1.EXE</CommandLine> <Input>1</Input> <Output>One</Output> <Test TestId="0002" TestType="CMD"> <Name>Find succeeding characters</Name> <CommandLine>Examp2.EXE</CommandLine> <Input>abc</Input> <Output>def</Output> </Test> <Test TestId="0003" TestType="GUI"> <Name>Convert multiple numbers to strings</Name> <CommandLine>Examp2.EXE /Verbose</CommandLine> <Input>123</Input> <Output>One Two Three</Output> </Test> <Test TestId="0004" TestType="GUI"> <Name>Find correlated key</Name> <CommandLine>Examp3.EXE</CommandLine> <Input>a1</Input> <Output>b1</Output> </Test> <Test TestId="0005" TestType="GUI"> <Name>Count characters</Name> <CommandLine>FinalExamp.EXE</CommandLine> <Input>This is a test</Input> <Output>14</Output> </Test> <Test TestId="0006" TestType="GUI"> <Name>Another Test</Name> <CommandLine>Examp2.EXE</CommandLine> <Input>Test Input</Input> <Output>10</Output> </Test> <Test/> <Test /> <Test></Test> <Test attribute = "value" attribute2="value2"/> <Test attribute = "value" attribute2="value2" /> <Test attribute = "value" attribute2="value2" ></Test> <([^\/> ]+?)\s*?([^>]*)\s*(?:\/>|>(.*)<\/\1>) - (with g-, s- & U-modifiers) finds all tags in scope 1st group is tagname 2nd group is attributes 3rd group (if it exists) is value of the tag Apply pattern again on 3th group to find internal tags (recurse in the code to parse entire xml!) Apply pattern below on 2nd group to find all attributes: \s*([^<>\=" ]+)\s*=\s*"([^"]*)" - (with g-modifier) finds attributes 1st group is attributename 2nd group is attributevalue """# let stringRange = NSRange(location: 0, length: testString.utf16.count) let matches = regex.matches(in: testString, range: stringRange) var result: [[String]] = [] for match in matches { var groups: [String] = [] for rangeIndex in 1 ..< match.numberOfRanges { let nsRange = match.range(at: rangeIndex) guard !NSEqualRanges(nsRange, NSMakeRange(NSNotFound, 0)) else { continue } let string = (testString as NSString).substring(with: nsRange) groups.append(string) } if !groups.isEmpty { result.append(groups) } } print(result)

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 Swift 5.2, please visit: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/nsregularexpression