Regular Expressions 101

Pro

(?is)applies the following effective flags to the remainder of the pattern: gmis

i modifier: insensitive. Matches without distinguishing uppercase and lowercase letters

s modifier: single line. Allows a dot to match line terminators

Group 1(<a[^>]+href\s*=\s*(['"])([^'"]+)\2[^>]*>)

<athe literal text <a (case insensitive)

Negated Character Class[^>]+

+matches at least one character outside the set below:

>the literal > (62₁₀ / 76₈ / 3E₁₆)

hrefthe literal text href (case insensitive)

\s*any whitespace character, repeated any number of times

=the literal = (61₁₀ / 75₈ / 3D₁₆)

\s*any whitespace character, repeated any number of times

Group 2(['"])

Character Class['"]

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

"the literal " (34₁₀ / 42₈ / 22₁₆)

Group 3([^'"]+)

Negated Character Class[^'"]+

+matches at least one character outside the set below:

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

"the literal " (34₁₀ / 42₈ / 22₁₆)

\2the text saved by group 2

Negated Character Class[^>]*

*matches any number of characters outside the set below:

>the literal > (62₁₀ / 76₈ / 3E₁₆)

.*?any character, repeated any number of times

<the literal < (60₁₀ / 74₈ / 3C₁₆)

\/the literal / (47₁₀ / 57₈ / 2F₁₆)

a>the literal text a> (case insensitive)

Global pattern flags

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

m modifier: multiline. Causes ^ and $ to match the start and end of each line, not only the start and end of the string

Detailed match information will be displayed here automatically.

25 tokens

(?is)(<a[^>]+href\s*=\s*(['"])([^'"]+)\2[^>]*>).*?<\/a>

New

<a href="http://...">some text</a>

<a href="http://...">some text</a>