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
Processing...

Test String

Substitution
Processing...

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

import re regex = re.compile(r"<[\s\S]+?>", flags=re.MULTILINE) test_str = ("covid sucks and I want to go outside <!--/* Font Definitions */@font-face{font-family:Wingdings;panose-1:5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;}@font- \n" "face{font-family:\"\"Cambria Math\"\";panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}@font-face{font-family:Calibri;panose- \n" "1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}@font-face{font-family:\"\"Bradley Hand ITC\"\";panose-1:3 7 4 2 5 3 2 3 2 3;}/* \n" "Style Definitions */p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal{margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font- \n" "size:11.0pt;font-family:\"\"Calibri\"\",sans-serif;}p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, \n" "div.MsoListParagraph{m{margin-bottom:0in;}--> pop goes the peanut.\n\n" "this is text before the junk starts <!--/* Font Definitions */@font-face{font-family:Wingdings;panose-1:5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;}@font- \n" "face{font-family:\"\"Camb\n\n" "NEW LINE!\n" "NEW LINE!\n\n" "ria Math\"\";panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}@font-face{font-family:Calibri;panose- \n" "1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}@font-face{font-family:\"\"Bradley Hand ITC\"\";panose-1:3 7 4 2 5 3 2 3 2 3;}/* \n" "Style Definitions */p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal{margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font- \n" "size:11.0pt;font-family:\"\"Calibri\"\",sans-serif;}p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, \n" "div.MsoListParagraph{m{margin-bottom:0in;}--> ...and this is the bit afterwards even if the junk has line returns.") subst = "" result = regex.sub(subst, test_str) if result: print(result)

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