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

import java.util.regex.Matcher; import java.util.regex.Pattern; public class Example { public static void main(String[] args) { final String regex = "(?mis)^\\bgeneral( #[0-9])?(.*?)^\\s*$"; final String string = "General\n" + "Complete name : C:\\Projects\\Foray\\MediaEngine\\SampleMedia\\flv\\small.flv\n" + "Format : Flash Video\n" + "File size : 296 KiB\n" + "Duration : 5s 560ms\n" + "Overall bit rate mode : Variable\n" + "Overall bit rate : 436 Kbps\n" + "Writing application : Lavf52.103.0\n\n" + "Video\n" + "Format : Sorenson Spark\n" + "Codec ID : 2\n" + "Duration : 5s 560ms\n" + "Bit rate : 781 Kbps\n" + "Width : 320 pixels\n" + "Height : 240 pixels\n" + "Display aspect ratio : 4:3\n" + "Frame rate mode : Constant\n" + "Frame rate : 25.000 fps\n" + "Bit depth : 8 bits\n" + "Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.407\n" + "Stream size : 530 KiB\n\n" + "Audio\n" + "Format : MPEG Audio\n" + "Format version : Version 1\n" + "Format profile : Layer 3\n" + "Codec ID : 2\n" + "Codec ID/Hint : MP3\n" + "Duration : 5s 512ms\n" + "Bit rate mode : Variable\n" + "Bit rate : 63.8 Kbps\n" + "Channel(s) : 1 channel\n" + "Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz\n" + "Compression mode : Lossy\n" + "Stream size : 42.9 KiB (14%)\n\n\n"; final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex); final Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(string); if (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