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

/
/

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

$re = '/[]\r\n]+\d{4}\/\d{2}\/\d{2}\s\d{2}\:\d{2}\:\d{2}\.\d{7}\s\d{4}/'; $str = '2015/08/13 18:20:35.0450892 1104 10780 Shared * START * Service startup 2015/08/13 18:20:35.0536222 1104 10780 Agent WU client version 10.0.10240.16397 2015/08/13 18:20:35.0538960 1104 10780 Agent SleepStudyTracker: Machine is non-AOAC. Sleep study tracker disabled. 2015/08/13 18:20:35.0539537 1104 10780 Agent Base directory: C:\\WINDOWS\\SoftwareDistribution 2015/08/13 18:20:35.0540354 1104 10780 Shared UpdateNetworkState Ipv6, cNetworkInterfaces = 8. 2015/08/13 18:20:35.0540549 1104 10780 Shared UpdateNetworkState Ipv4, cNetworkInterfaces = 2. 2015/08/13 18:20:35.0544494 1104 10780 Shared Network state: Connected 2015/08/13 18:20:35.0580648 1104 10780 Shared UpdateNetworkState Ipv6, cNetworkInterfaces = 8. 2015/08/13 18:20:35.0580736 1104 10780 Shared UpdateNetworkState Ipv4, cNetworkInterfaces = 2. 2015/08/13 18:20:35.0580804 1104 10780 Shared Power status changed 2015/08/13 18:20:35.0718558 1104 10780 Agent Initializing global settings cache 2015/08/13 18:20:35.0718573 1104 10780 Agent WSUS server: NULL 2015/08/13 18:20:35.0718583 1104 10780 Agent WSUS status server: NULL 2015/08/13 18:20:35.0718593 1104 10780 Agent Target group: (Unassigned Computers) 2015/08/13 18:20:35.0718602 1104 10780 Agent Windows Update access disabled: No 2015/08/13 18:20:35.0723643 1104 10780 Agent Timer: 855E8A7C-ECB4-4CA3-B045-1DFA50104289, Expires 2015-08-13 22:22:28, not idle-only, <NULL>network-only 2015/08/13 18:20:35.0723702 1104 10780 Agent Timer: 29A863E7-8609-4D1E-B7CD-5668F857F1DB, Expires 2015-08-14 17:45:53, not idle-only, not network-only 2015/08/13 18:20:35.0767535 1104 10780 Agent Initializing Windows Update Agent 2015/08/13 18:20:35.0768073 1104 10780 DownloadManager Download manager restoring 0 downloads 2015/08/13 18:20:35.0768674 1104 10780 Agent CPersistentTimeoutScheduler | GetTimer, returned hr = 0x00000000 2015/08/13 18:20:35.2159607 1104 11340 DownloadManager PurgeExpiredFiles::Found 0 expired files to delete. 2015/08/13 18:20:35.2217267 1104 11340 DownloadManager PurgeExpiredUpdates::Found 606 non expired updates. 2015/08/13 18:20:35.3462873 1104 11340 DownloadManager PurgeExpiredUpdates::Found 0 expired updates. 2015/08/13 18:20:35.3466012 1104 11340 Shared Effective power state: AC'; preg_match($re, $str, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE, 0); // Print the entire match result var_dump($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