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

import java.util.regex.Matcher; import java.util.regex.Pattern; public class Example { public static void main(String[] args) { final String regex = "# Define the opening and closing elements before the recursion occurs\n" + "(?(DEFINE)\n" + " (?<open_curly>\\{)\n" + " (?<close_curly>\\})\n" + " (?<open_square>\\[)\n" + " (?<close_square>\\])\n" + " (?P<open_pascal>(?i:\\bbegin\\b))\n" + " (?P<close_pascal>(?i:\\bend\\b))\n" + " (?P<open_lua>--\\[)\n" + " (?P<close_lua>--\\])\n" + " (?<open>\\g'open_curly'|\\g'open_square'|\\g'open_pascal'|\\g'open_lua')\n" + " (?<close>\\g'close_curly'|\\g'close_square'|\\g'close_pascal'|\\g'close_lua')\n" + ")\n\n" + "# Match the opening element\n" + "(\\g'open'\n" + " (?>\n" + " # For recursion, don't match either the opening\n" + " # or closing element\n" + " (?!\\g'open'|\\g'close')(.)\n" + " |\n" + " # Recurse this captured pattern\n" + " (?-1)\n" + " )*\n\n" + "# Match the closing element\n" + "\\g'close')\n"; final String string = "EVENLY BALANCED curly braces\n\n" + "{{{}}}\n" + "{ test1 { test2 { test3 { test4 } } } }\n\n" + "UNEVENLY BALANCED curly braces\n" + "{{{{}}}\n" + "{ test1 { test2 { test3 { test4 } } } } }\n\n" + "MULTI-LINE EVENLY BALANCED curly braces\n" + "{\n" + "}\n\n" + "MULTI-LINE UNEVENLY BALANCED curly braces\n" + "{{\n" + "}\n\n\n" + "EVENLY BALANCED square braces\n" + "[ test1 [ test2 [ test3 [ test4 ] ] ] ]\n\n" + "EVENLY BALANCED square and curly braces\n" + "{ test1 [ test2 { test3 [ test4 ] } ] }\n\n" + "UNEVENLY BALANCED square and curly braces\n" + "{ test1 [ test2 { test3 [ test4 ] } } ]\n"; final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex, Pattern.COMMENTS); final Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(string); while (matcher.find()) { System.out.println("Full match: " + matcher.group(0)); for (int i = 1; i <= matcher.groupCount(); i++) { System.out.println("Group " + i + ": " + matcher.group(i)); } } } }

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 Java, please visit: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/regex/Pattern.html