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

/
/
gx

Test String

Code Generator

Generated Code

#include <StringConstants.au3> ; to declare the Constants of StringRegExp #include <Array.au3> ; UDF needed for _ArrayDisplay and _ArrayConcatenate Local $sRegex = "(?x)# Define the opening and closing elements before the recursion occurs" & @CRLF & _ "(?(DEFINE)" & @CRLF & _ " (?<open_curly>\{)" & @CRLF & _ " (?<close_curly>\})" & @CRLF & _ " (?<open_square>\[)" & @CRLF & _ " (?<close_square>\])" & @CRLF & _ " (?P<open_pascal>(?i:\bbegin\b))" & @CRLF & _ " (?P<close_pascal>(?i:\bend\b))" & @CRLF & _ " (?P<open_lua>--\[)" & @CRLF & _ " (?P<close_lua>--\])" & @CRLF & _ " (?<open>\g'open_curly'|\g'open_square'|\g'open_pascal'|\g'open_lua')" & @CRLF & _ " (?<close>\g'close_curly'|\g'close_square'|\g'close_pascal'|\g'close_lua')" & @CRLF & _ ")" & @CRLF & _ "" & @CRLF & _ "# Match the opening element" & @CRLF & _ "(\g'open'" & @CRLF & _ " (?>" & @CRLF & _ " # For recursion, don't match either the opening" & @CRLF & _ " # or closing element" & @CRLF & _ " (?!\g'open'|\g'close')(.)" & @CRLF & _ " |" & @CRLF & _ " # Recurse this captured pattern" & @CRLF & _ " (?-1)" & @CRLF & _ " )*" & @CRLF & _ "" & @CRLF & _ "# Match the closing element" & @CRLF & _ "\g'close')" & @CRLF & _ "" Local $sString = "EVENLY BALANCED curly braces" & @CRLF & _ "" & @CRLF & _ "{{{}}}" & @CRLF & _ "{ test1 { test2 { test3 { test4 } } } }" & @CRLF & _ "" & @CRLF & _ "UNEVENLY BALANCED curly braces" & @CRLF & _ "{{{{}}}" & @CRLF & _ "{ test1 { test2 { test3 { test4 } } } } }" & @CRLF & _ "" & @CRLF & _ "MULTI-LINE EVENLY BALANCED curly braces" & @CRLF & _ "{" & @CRLF & _ "}" & @CRLF & _ "" & @CRLF & _ "MULTI-LINE UNEVENLY BALANCED curly braces" & @CRLF & _ "{{" & @CRLF & _ "}" & @CRLF & _ "" & @CRLF & _ "" & @CRLF & _ "EVENLY BALANCED square braces" & @CRLF & _ "[ test1 [ test2 [ test3 [ test4 ] ] ] ]" & @CRLF & _ "" & @CRLF & _ "EVENLY BALANCED square and curly braces" & @CRLF & _ "{ test1 [ test2 { test3 [ test4 ] } ] }" & @CRLF & _ "" & @CRLF & _ "UNEVENLY BALANCED square and curly braces" & @CRLF & _ "{ test1 [ test2 { test3 [ test4 ] } } ]" & @CRLF & _ "" Local $aArray = StringRegExp($sString, $sRegex, $STR_REGEXPARRAYGLOBALFULLMATCH) Local $aFullArray[0] For $i = 0 To UBound($aArray) -1 _ArrayConcatenate($aFullArray, $aArray[$i]) Next $aArray = $aFullArray ; Present the entire match result _ArrayDisplay($aArray, "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 AutoIt, please visit: https://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/functions/StringRegExp.htm