Regular Expressions 101

Explanation

Pro

^start of line

Non-Capturing Group(?:-.*\r?\n)+

+repeats the group contents below at least once:

-the literal - (45₁₀ / 55₈ / 2D₁₆)

.*any character (except for line terminators), repeated any number of times

\r?optionally matches a carriage return (ASCII 13)

\na line-feed (newline) character (ASCII 10)

Positive Lookahead(?=(?:[^\S\r\n]+-.*\r?\n)*[^\S\r\n]+.*(term 1))

Non-Capturing Group(?:[^\S\r\n]+-.*\r?\n)*

*repeats the group contents below any number of times:

Negated Character Class[^\S\r\n]+

+matches at least one character outside the set below:

\Sany non-whitespace character

\ra carriage return (ASCII 13)

\na line-feed (newline) character (ASCII 10)

-the literal - (45₁₀ / 55₈ / 2D₁₆)

.*any character (except for line terminators), repeated any number of times

\r?optionally matches a carriage return (ASCII 13)

\na line-feed (newline) character (ASCII 10)

Negated Character Class[^\S\r\n]+

+matches at least one character outside the set below:

\Sany non-whitespace character

\ra carriage return (ASCII 13)

\na line-feed (newline) character (ASCII 10)

.*any character (except for line terminators), repeated any number of times

Group 1(term 1)

term 1the literal text term 1 (case insensitive)

Positive Lookahead(?=(?:[^\S\r\n]+-.*\r?\n)*[^\S\r\n]+-.*(term 2))

Non-Capturing Group(?:[^\S\r\n]+-.*\r?\n)*

*repeats the group contents below any number of times:

Negated Character Class[^\S\r\n]+

+matches at least one character outside the set below:

\Sany non-whitespace character

\ra carriage return (ASCII 13)

\na line-feed (newline) character (ASCII 10)

-the literal - (45₁₀ / 55₈ / 2D₁₆)

.*any character (except for line terminators), repeated any number of times

\r?optionally matches a carriage return (ASCII 13)

\na line-feed (newline) character (ASCII 10)

Negated Character Class[^\S\r\n]+

+matches at least one character outside the set below:

\Sany non-whitespace character

\ra carriage return (ASCII 13)

\na line-feed (newline) character (ASCII 10)

-the literal - (45₁₀ / 55₈ / 2D₁₆)

.*any character (except for line terminators), repeated any number of times

Group 2(term 2)

term 2the literal text term 2 (case insensitive)

Non-Capturing Group(?:[^\S\r\n]+.*(?:\r?\n|$))+

+repeats the group contents below at least once:

Negated Character Class[^\S\r\n]+

+matches at least one character outside the set below:

\Sany non-whitespace character

\ra carriage return (ASCII 13)

\na line-feed (newline) character (ASCII 10)

.*any character (except for line terminators), repeated any number of times

Non-Capturing Group(?:\r?\n|$)

1st Alternative\r?\n

\r?optionally matches a carriage return (ASCII 13)

\na line-feed (newline) character (ASCII 10)

2nd Alternative$

$end of line

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

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

Match Information

Detailed match information will be displayed here automatically.

Quick Reference

25 tokens

Regular Expression

^(?:-.*\r?\n)+(?=(?:[^\S\r\n]+-.*\r?\n)*[^\S\r\n]+.*(term 1))(?=(?:[^\S\r\n]+-.*\r?\n)*[^\S\r\n]+-.*(term 2))(?:[^\S\r\n]+.*(?:\r?\n|$))+

New

- Example nested list 1
    - This point contains term 2
    - This point contains term 1

- Example nested list 2
    - This line contains term 1
    - This line contains term 2

- Example nested list 3
    - This line contains term 2
    - This line contains term 3

- Example nested list 4
    - This line contains term 5
    - This line contains term 1