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

Code Generator

Generated Code

$re = '/3Dcache*:().*%252B/'; $str = '<li class="g"><h3 class="r"><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?um=1&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;fb=1&amp;gl=us&amp;cid=12546501552342514458&amp;q=Malheur+National+Forest&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=tsCpU7y-HM28oQSa9IIQ&amp;ved=0CBUQtQMwAA"><div>Map for <b>Malheur National Forest</b></div></a></h3><div class="mlmcm" style="margin:16px 0"><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?um=1&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;fb=1&amp;gl=us&amp;cid=12546501552342514458&amp;q=Malheur+National+Forest&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=tsCpU7y-HM28oQSa9IIQ&amp;ved=0CBYQtgMwAA"><img height="233" src="/maps/vt/data=VLHX1wd2Cgu8wR6jwyh-km8JBWAkEzU4,6YhdV0BKWTh3M22uoHrEdeI_eUVZLHdlKYEtPFQ8P__WuSea3AFMDTBKDIzC2UNN2GnK4eVSnL54ZIUZDihddu9CI74my1jHESqjX7czgrXEHjDCIHFYymlYhBU" style="border:0;padding:1px" width="550"/></a></div><h3 class="r"><a href="/url?q=http://www.fs.usda.gov/malheur&amp;sa=U&amp;ei=tsCpU7y-HM28oQSa9IIQ&amp;ved=0CBgQFjAA&amp;usg=AFQjCNEd9QcHqk_lxZTz9AcslMsyLwA9XQ"><b>Malheur National Forest</b> - Home - USDA Forest Service</a></h3><div class="s"><div class="kv" style="margin-bottom:2px"><cite>www.fs.usda.gov/<b>malheur</b></cite><div class="am-dwn-arw-container">‎<div aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" data-ved="0CBkQ7B0wAA" onclick="google.sham(this);" style="display:inline" tabindex="0"><span class="am-dwn-arw"></span></div><div class="am-dropdown-menu" role="menu" style="display:none" tabindex="-1"><ul><li class="am-dropdown-menu-item"><a class="am-dropdown-menu-item-text" href="/url?q=http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:0bqZkM4XQqIJ:http://www.fs.usda.gov/malheur%252BMalheur%2BNational%2BForest%26hl%3Den%26%26ct%3Dclnk&amp;sa=U&amp;ei=tsCpU7y-HM28oQSa9IIQ&amp;ved=0CBsQIDAA&amp;usg=AFQjCNHcxq8MhoHz9__jp8pwHUrw2RPqCQ">Cached</a></li><li class="am-dropdown-menu-item"><a class="am-dropdown-menu-item-text" href="/search?ie=UTF-8&amp;q=related:www.fs.usda.gov/malheur+Malheur+National+Forest&amp;tbo=1&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=tsCpU7y-HM28oQSa9IIQ&amp;ved=0CBwQHzAA">Similar</a></li></ul></div></div></div><span class="st">The 1.7 million acre <b>Malheur National</b> For est is located in the Blue Mountains of <br> Eastern Oregon. The diverse and beautiful scenery of the <b>forest</b> includes high ...</br></span><br><div style="margin-top:13px"><table width="100%"><tr><td style="padding-right:4px;padding-top:1px" valign="top" width="24"><img src="/mapfiles/marker-noalpha.png"/></td><td valign="top" width="485"><span style="vertical-align:top">Canyon City, OR 97820<br style="display:block"><span class="nobr">(541) 575-3000</span></br></span></td><td style="padding-top:2px;padding-left:9px" valign="top"><div style="float:right"><div class="star" style="float:none"><div style="width:0px"> </div></div></div><div style="clear:both"><a class="fl nobr" href="/url?q=https://plus.google.com/105110280666932757061/about%3Fhl%3Den%26socfid%3Dweb:lu:unknown:localdetails%26socpid%3D1&amp;sa=U&amp;ei=tsCpU7y-HM28oQSa9IIQ&amp;ved=0CCAQ4gkwAA&amp;usg=AFQjCNEo8ifBqVIqKICfCb2t4c6TZYk5mA">2 reviews</a></div></td></tr></table></div></br></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="slk" style="border-collapse:collapse;margin-top:1px"><tr class="mslg"><td style="padding-left:23px;vertical-align:top"><div class="sld"><h3 class="r"><a class="sla" href="/url?q=http://www.fs.usda.gov/contactus/malheur/about-forest/contactus&amp;sa=U&amp;ei=tsCpU7y-HM28oQSa9IIQ&amp;ved=0CCMQjBAwAQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNGjoBzfmSfSTCOzBNxBnOhKa28FUQ">Contact Us</a></h3><div class="s st" style="width:220px;overflow:hidden">More information is available on individual Ranger District Office ...</div></div></td><td style="padding-left:7px;vertical-align:top"><div class="sld"><h3 class="r"><a class="sla" href="/url?q=http://www.fs.usda.gov/recmain/malheur/recreation&amp;sa=U&amp;ei=tsCpU7y-HM28oQSa9IIQ&amp;ved=0CCUQjBAwAw&amp;usg=AFQjCNEmTooI03G5kMNTyIVqgU8Cu822dg">Recreation</a></h3><div class="s st" style="width:220px;overflow:hidden">The 1.7 million acre Malheur National Forest located in the ...</div></div></td></tr><tr class="mslg"><td style="padding-left:23px;vertical-align:top"><div class="sld"><h3 class="r"><a class="sla" href="/url?q=http://www.fs.usda.gov/main/malheur/maps-pubs&amp;sa=U&amp;ei=tsCpU7y-HM28oQSa9IIQ&amp;ved=0CCcQjBAwAg&amp;usg=AFQjCNFuRB8FTFH1goZ5XStBRakys6JoIQ">Maps &amp; Publications</a></h3><div class="s st" style="width:220px;overflow:hidden">Forest Service Topography Maps: These maps overlay Forest ...</div></div></td><td style="padding-left:7px;vertical-align:top"><div class="sld"><h3 class="r"><a class="sla" href="/url?q=http://www.fs.usda.gov/main/malheur/about-forest&amp;sa=U&amp;ei=tsCpU7y-HM28oQSa9IIQ&amp;ved=0CCkQjBAwBA&amp;usg=AFQjCNHSrG5pziXkX2tf50PdNo7qWMeT1A">About the Forest</a></h3><div class="s st" style="width:220px;overflow:hidden">The Malheur National Forest in the Blue Mountains of Eastern ...</div></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" style="padding-left:28px;vertical-align:top"><div style="padding-top:5px"><a class="fl" href="/search?ie=UTF-8&amp;q=+site:usda.gov+Malheur+National+Forest&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=tsCpU7y-HM28oQSa9IIQ&amp;ved=0CCoQrAM">More results from usda.gov »</a></div></td></tr></table></li>'; preg_match($re, $str, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE, 0); // Print the entire match result var_dump($matches);

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 PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php