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

/
/
m

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

import Foundation let pattern = #"^(?:(?!----------).*\n)+(?=----------$)"# let regex = try! NSRegularExpression(pattern: pattern, options: .anchorsMatchLines) let testString = #""" Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. test ---------- User 1 said the following: Magna fermentum iaculis eu non diam phasellus vestibulum lorem. Lectus quam id leo in vitae turpis massa sed elementum. Ut consequat semper viverra nam libero. Libero justo laoreet sit amet cursus sit amet. ---------- User 2 said the following: Magna fermentum iaculis eu non diam phasellus vestibulum lorem. Lectus quam id leo in vitae turpis massa sed elementum. Ut consequat semper viverra nam libero. Libero justo laoreet sit amet cursus sit amet. """# let stringRange = NSRange(location: 0, length: testString.utf16.count) if let firstMatch = regex.firstMatch(in: testString, range: stringRange) { let result: [String] = (1 ..< firstMatch.numberOfRanges).map { (testString as NSString).substring(with: firstMatch.range(at: $0)) } print(result) } else { print("No matches were found.") }

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 Swift 5.2, please visit: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/nsregularexpression