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

/
/
gi

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

$re = '/(?i)\b(Maz( )?Kana(a)?ta|Han( )?Solo|Har(r)?ison( )?Ford|Leia|Carrie( )?Fisher|Skywalker|Hamill|Chewbacca|Chewie|Wookie|Mayhew|Kylo|Adam( )?Driver|Daisy( )?Ridley|Boyega|Abrams|J(\.)?( )?J(\.)?( )?(A)?(\.)?( )?|Hux|Domhnall|Gleeson|Phasma|Gwendoline|Vader|Darth|Snoke|R2(\-)?D2|C3PO|Lor( )?San|Tekka|Sydow|BB(\-)?8|Dameron|Oscar( )?Isa(a)?c|Star( )?War(s)?|Force( )?Awakens|Light( )?saber|Jedi|Storm( )?trooper|Millennium( )?Falcon)/i'; $str = '* Maz Kanata * Han Solo, Harrison Ford+ * Leia, Carrie Fisher+ * Skywalker, Hamill+ * Chewbacca, Chewie, Wookie(e), Mayhew+ * Kylo, Adam Driver+ * Daisy Ridley+ * Boyega+ * Abrams+, JJA+, J.J.A.+, J. J. A.+ * (General) Hux, Domhnall+, Gleeson+ * (Captain) Phasma, Gwendoline (Christie)+ * Vader, Darth - sorry, [@darth][] * Snoke * R2-D2 * C3PO * Lor San, Tekka, (Max von) Sydow+ * BB-8 * (Poe) Dameron, Oscar Isaac+ * * * * * Star Wars, Force Awakens * Lightsaber * Jedi * Stormtrooper * Millennium Falcon * * * * `+` Refers to a filter based on the actor/director’s real name. You may not want to include this, if you want to follow the person—while risking the spoiler. You may have wondered why Lupita Nyong’o is not on the list. Go figure. [@darth]: https://twitter.com/darth'; preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0); // Print the entire match result var_dump($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