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
No Match

`
`
gm

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

# coding=utf8 # the above tag defines encoding for this document and is for Python 2.x compatibility import re regex = r"^((?P<mode>[^:]+):\s)?in:(?P<InputInterface>[^,]+)\s+out:(?P<OutputInterface>[^,]+),\sconnection-state:(?P<ConnectionState>[^\s]+)\s+(?:src-mac\s+(?P<SourceMacAddress>[^,]+),\s+)?proto\s+(?P<Protocol>\w+)(?:\s+\((?P<Flags>[^)]+)\))?,\s+\[?(?P<SourceAddress>\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}|[a-f\d:]+)\]?(?::(?P<SourcePort>\d+))?->\[?(?P<DestinationAddress>\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}|[a-f\d:]+)\]?(?::(?P<DestinationPort>\d+))?,\s(NAT\s?\[?(?P<NatSourceAddress>\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}|[a-f\d:]+)\]?(?::(?P<NatSourcePort>\d+))?->\(\[?(?P<NatExternalAddress>\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}|[a-f\d:]+)\]?(?::(?P<NatExternalPort>\d+))?->\[?(?P<NatInternalAddress>\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}|[a-f\d:]+)\]?(?::(?P<NatInternalPort>\d+))?\),\s)?len\s+(?P<Length>\d+)" test_str = ("srcnat: in:(unknown 0) out:fbox, connection-state:new proto UDP, 82.62.133.323:123->224.0.1.1:123, len 96\n" "srcnat: in:Interco out:WAN, connection-state:new src-mac 00:0c:49:16:06:aa, proto UDP, 10.1.40.1:59306->8.8.4.4:53, len 82\n" "srcnat: in:Interco out:fbox, connection-state:new src-mac 00:0c:49:16:06:aa, proto ICMP (type 128, code 0), 2a0c:c621:151::2->2a0c:c621:151::1, len 192\n" "output: in:(unknown 0) out:Interco, connection-state:established proto ICMP (type 128, code 0), 2a0c:b641:111::1->2a0c:b641:111::2, len 16\n" "in:freebox out:Interco, connection-state:new,dnat src-mac 20:66:cf:18:cf:15, proto TCP (SYN), 18.130.12.138:51566->10.2.70.1:443, NAT 18.130.12.138:51566->(82.66.103.223:443->10.2.70.1:443), len 60\n" "in:Wireguard-R0 out:(unknown 0), connection-state:established proto TCP (ACK,PSH), 10.255.1.1:179->10.255.1.2:34601, len 196\n" "in:Wireguard-R0 out:(unknown 0), connection-state:established proto TCP (ACK), 10.255.1.1:179->10.255.1.2:34601, len 52\n" "in:Wireguard-R0 out:(unknown 0), connection-state:established proto TCP (ACK,PSH), 10.255.1.1:179->10.255.1.2:34601, len 205\n" "in:freebox out:Interco, connection-state:new,dnat src-mac 20:66:cf:18:cf:15, proto TCP (SYN), 18.130.12.138:39888->10.2.70.1:443, NAT 18.130.12.138:39888->(82.66.103.223:443->10.2.70.1:443), len 60\n" "in:WAN out:Interco, connection-state:established,snat src-mac 80:2d:bf:8e:31:f7, proto UDP, [2620:2d:4000:1::41]:123->[2a0c:b641:112:20:250:56ff:fea9:578d]:41270, len 56\n" "in:WAN out:Interco, connection-state:established,snat src-mac 80:2d:bf:39:f5:47, proto TCP (SYN,ACK), [2606:4700:4700::1111]:53->[2a0c:b641:112:40:20c:29ff:fe69:e5e7]:45257, len 40\n" "srcnat: in:Interco out:WAN, connection-state:new src-mac 00:0c:29:16:06:aa, proto TCP (SYN), 10.1.40.1:34543->8.8.8.8:53, len 60\n") matches = re.finditer(regex, test_str, re.MULTILINE) for matchNum, match in enumerate(matches, start=1): print ("Match {matchNum} was found at {start}-{end}: {match}".format(matchNum = matchNum, start = match.start(), end = match.end(), match = match.group())) for groupNum in range(0, len(match.groups())): groupNum = groupNum + 1 print ("Group {groupNum} found at {start}-{end}: {group}".format(groupNum = groupNum, start = match.start(groupNum), end = match.end(groupNum), group = match.group(groupNum))) # Note: for Python 2.7 compatibility, use ur"" to prefix the regex and u"" to prefix the test string and substitution.

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 Python, please visit: https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html