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

~
~
gmx

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

# coding=utf8 # the above tag defines encoding for this document and is for Python 2.x compatibility import re regex = r""" ^ \h*+ (?<VOTERNO> [0-9]+ ) \h+ (?<SURNAME> \S+ (?>\h\S+)*? ) \h{2,} (?<OTHERNAMES> \S+ (?>\h\S+)*? ) \h{2,} (?<DOB> [0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{4} ) \h+ (?<SEX> [FM] ) \h+ (?<APPID_RECNO> [0-9A-Z/]+ ) \h+ (?<VILLAGE> \S+ (?>\h\S+)* ) \h* $ """ test_str = (" NATIONAL VOTERS' REGISTER\n" " ELECTORAL COMMISSION ACT, CAP(140)\n\n\n\n\n" "NVR TEXT REGISTER FOR GENERAL ELECTIONS 2015/2016\n\n\n\n" " DISTRICT : 12 JOI\n" " CONSTITUENCY : 035 GRGR RT\n" " SUB-COUNTY : 11 GHT\n" " PARISH : 01 ATZ\n" " POLLING STATION : 01 OT\n\n\n\n\n" " TOTAL: 398\n\n" " NO OF PAGES : 9\n\n\n\n\n" " THE REPUBLIC\n" " NATIONAL VOTERS' REGISTER\n" " ELECTORAL COMMISSION ACT, CAP(140)\n" " NVR TEXT REGISTER FOR GENERAL ELECTIONS 2015/2016\n" " DISTRICT : 12 JOI PARISH : 01 ATZ\n" " CONSTITUENCY : 035 GRGR RT POLLING STATION : 01 OT\n" " SUB-COUNTY : 11 GHT\n" "VOTER NO SURNAME OTHERNAMES DOB SEX APPID/RECEIPT NO VILLAGE\n" " 57534676 AAA BBB 01-01-1965 M 0323830000V0C/CM5607 ABC\n\n" " 53276273 CCC DDD 28-07-1981 M 1074620203FUX/CM9007 TTR RR\n" " TOTAL: 398 PAGE : 1 OF 9\n\n" " THE REPUBLIC\n" " NATIONAL VOTERS' REGISTER\n" " ELECTORAL COMMISSION ACT, CAP(140)\n" " NVR TEXT REGISTER FOR GENERAL ELECTIONS 2015/2016\n" " DISTRICT : 12 JOI PARISH : 01 ATZ\n" " CONSTITUENCY : 035 GRGR RT POLLING STATION : 01 OT\n" " SUB-COUNTY : 11 GHT\n" "VOTER NO SURNAME OTHERNAMES DOB SEX APPID/RECEIPT NO VILLAGE\n" " 53390750 EEE FFF 18-04-1978 F 13238200006Z6/CF8507 TTR\n" " 60977834 GGG HHH 25-05-1979 F 1176520002RK4/CF1907 BREH") matches = re.finditer(regex, test_str, re.MULTILINE | re.VERBOSE) for matchNum, match in enumerate(matches, start=1): print ("Match {matchNum} was found at {start}-{end}: {match}".format(matchNum = matchNum, start = match.start(), end = match.end(), match = match.group())) for groupNum in range(0, len(match.groups())): groupNum = groupNum + 1 print ("Group {groupNum} found at {start}-{end}: {group}".format(groupNum = groupNum, start = match.start(groupNum), end = match.end(groupNum), group = match.group(groupNum))) # Note: for Python 2.7 compatibility, use ur"" to prefix the regex and u"" to prefix the test string and substitution.

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 Python, please visit: https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html