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
  • Match everything enclosed
    (?:...)
  • Capture everything enclosed
    (...)
  • 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

import java.util.regex.Matcher; import java.util.regex.Pattern; public class Example { public static void main(String[] args) { final String regex = "(?xsm) # free-spacing mode, DOTALL, multi-line\n" + "(?=.*?blue) # if blue isn't there, fail without delay\n\n" + "########### LINE SKIPPER / COUNTER ############\n" + "(?: # start non-capture group\n" + " # the aim is to skip lines that don't contain blue\n" + " # and capture a corresponding digit sequence\n" + " (?: # skip one line that doesn't contain blue\n" + " ^ # beginning of line\n" + " (?:(?!blue)[^\\r\\n])* # zero or more chars\n" + " # that do not start blue\n" + " (?:\\r?\\n) # newline chars\n" + " ) \n" + "# With each line skipped, let Group 1 capture\n" + "# an ever-growing portion of the string of numbers\n" + " (?= # lookahead\n" + " .* # Go to the end of the file\n" + " ( # start Group 1\n" + " ~\\d+ # match a tilde and digits\n" + " (?(1)\\1) # if Group 1 is set, match Group 1\n" + " ) # end Group 1\n" + " ) # end lookahead\n" + ")*+ # end counter-line-skipper: zero or more times\n" + " # the possessive + forbids backtracking\n\n\n" + ".*? # lazily match any chars up to...\n" + "blue # match blue\n" + ".* # Get to the end of the data\n" + "~ # match a tilde\n" + "\\K # drop what we matched so far\n" + "\\d+ # match digits. This is the match! \n" + "(?=(?(1)\\1)) # if Group 1 has been set, match it\n"; final String string = "Paint it white\n" + "Paint it black\n" + "Why not blue?\n" + "Or red or brown?\n\n" + "~10~9~8~7~6~5~4~3~2~1"; final String subst = ""; final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex); final Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(string); // The substituted value will be contained in the result variable final String result = matcher.replaceFirst(subst); System.out.println("Substitution result: " + 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 Java, please visit: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/regex/Pattern.html