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

/
/

Test String

Substitution

Processing...

Code Generator

Generated Code

#include <MsgBoxConstants.au3> ; to declare the Constants of MsgBox Local $sRegex = "(?xsm) # free-spacing mode, DOTALL, multi-line" & @CRLF & _ "(?=.*?blue) # if blue isn't there, fail without delay" & @CRLF & _ "" & @CRLF & _ "########### LINE SKIPPER / COUNTER ############" & @CRLF & _ "(?: # start non-capture group" & @CRLF & _ " # the aim is to skip lines that don't contain blue" & @CRLF & _ " # and capture a corresponding digit sequence" & @CRLF & _ " (?: # skip one line that doesn't contain blue" & @CRLF & _ " ^ # beginning of line" & @CRLF & _ " (?:(?!blue)[^\r\n])* # zero or more chars" & @CRLF & _ " # that do not start blue" & @CRLF & _ " (?:\r?\n) # newline chars" & @CRLF & _ " ) " & @CRLF & _ "# With each line skipped, let Group 1 capture" & @CRLF & _ "# an ever-growing portion of the string of numbers" & @CRLF & _ " (?= # lookahead" & @CRLF & _ " .* # Go to the end of the file" & @CRLF & _ " ( # start Group 1" & @CRLF & _ " ~\d+ # match a tilde and digits" & @CRLF & _ " (?(1)\1) # if Group 1 is set, match Group 1" & @CRLF & _ " ) # end Group 1" & @CRLF & _ " ) # end lookahead" & @CRLF & _ ")*+ # end counter-line-skipper: zero or more times" & @CRLF & _ " # the possessive + forbids backtracking" & @CRLF & _ "" & @CRLF & _ "" & @CRLF & _ ".*? # lazily match any chars up to..." & @CRLF & _ "blue # match blue" & @CRLF & _ ".* # Get to the end of the data" & @CRLF & _ "~ # match a tilde" & @CRLF & _ "\K # drop what we matched so far" & @CRLF & _ "\d+ # match digits. This is the match! " & @CRLF & _ "(?=(?(1)\1)) # if Group 1 has been set, match it" & @CRLF & _ "" Local $sString = "Paint it white" & @CRLF & _ "Paint it black" & @CRLF & _ "Why not blue?" & @CRLF & _ "Or red or brown?" & @CRLF & _ "" & @CRLF & _ "~10~9~8~7~6~5~4~3~2~1" Local $sSubst = "" Local $sResult = StringRegExpReplace($sString, $sRegex, $sSubst) MsgBox($MB_SYSTEMMODAL, "Result", $sResult)

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 AutoIt, please visit: https://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/functions/StringRegExp.htm