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]
  • Character class intersection
    [\w&&[^\d]]
  • 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
Processing...

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 = "^(\\+ *|- *)?((?!0+)\\d*?|(?!0{2,})\\d*?\\.(?!0+)\\d*?)('|\")$|^(\\+ *|- *)? *(?!0+)\\d+?' *-? *(\\d+?|\\d*?\\.\\d*?)\"$|^((\\+ *|- *)?((?!0+)|0 )\\d*? *(?!0+)\\d+?\\/(?!0+)\\d+?('|\"))$"; final String string = " - \n" + " + \n" + "- x 20'-4\"\n" + "+ 20'\n" + "- 20'\n" + "20'3\"\n" + "20'-3\"\n" + "20' - 40\"\n" + "-20'-20\"\n" + "20'00\"\n" + "20.45\"\n" + "20.45'\n" + "00.45'\n" + "00.45\"\n" + "00\"\n" + "00'\n" + "+20' - 0.45\"\n" + " 20' - .45\"\n" + ".20'-4\"\n" + "0.30'-4\"\n" + " 20'\n" + "20'P\n" + " 20\"\n" + "20\"P\n" + "0.20'\n" + ".20'\n" + "a'\n" + "b\"\n" + "- 20 1/2'\n" + "+ 20 22/128\"\n" + "20 0/2\"\n" + "20 00/12'\n" + "-1/2\"\n" + "+ 1/2'\n" + "0/2\"\n" + "00/22\"\n" + "+ 01/2\"\n" + "23 00/30'\n" + "23 12/03'\n" + "23 02/20\"\n" + "0 2/3'\n" + "00 2/3'\n" + "- 11 2/3'\n" + "2 22'\n" + "2 22/03'\n" + "2 3/2\n" + "23 00/30\n" + "23 12/03\n" + "23 02/20\n" + "23/34\"\n" + "23/23.4\"\n" + "asf sf\"\n"; final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex, Pattern.MULTILINE); 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