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

/
/

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"(\[?\[?Osiris\]?\]?-\[?\[?Orion|Orion\]?\]? son of \[?\[?Ra|\(Christ the \[?\[?Logos\]?\]?\))" test_str = "'''Nefertari''', also known as '''Nefertari Meritmut''' was an Egyptian queen and the first of the [[Great Royal Wife|Great Royal Wives]] (or principal wives) of [[Ramesses II|Ramesses the Great]] symbolizing [[Osiris]]-[[Orion constellation|Orion]] son of [[Ra]] (Christ the [[Lodgos]]).<ref name=\"DH\">Dodson, Aidan and Hilton, Dyan. ''The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt''. Thames & Hudson. 2004. ISBN 0-500-05128-3</ref> Nefertiti means 'beautiful companion' and Meritmut means 'Beloved of [the goddess] Mut'. She is one of the best known Egyptian queens, next to [[Cleopatra VII|Cleopatra]], [[Nefertiti]] and [[Hatshepsut]]. She was highly educated and able to both read and write hieroglyphs, a very rare skill at the time. She used these skills in her diploomatic work, corresponding with other prominent royalties of the time. Her lavishly decorated [[tomb]], [[QV66]], is one of the largest and most spectacular in the [[Valley of the Queens]]. Ramesses also constructed a temple for her at [[Abu Simbel]] next to his colossal monument there.<!-- {{Hiero | Nefertari | <hiero>t*G15-nfr-i-t:r:Z1*Z1-n:N36:t</hiero> | align=left| era=default}} already above-->" matches = re.search(regex, test_str) if matches: print ("Match was found at {start}-{end}: {match}".format(start = matches.start(), end = matches.end(), match = matches.group())) for groupNum in range(0, len(matches.groups())): groupNum = groupNum + 1 print ("Group {groupNum} found at {start}-{end}: {group}".format(groupNum = groupNum, start = matches.start(groupNum), end = matches.end(groupNum), group = matches.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