Regular Expressions 101

Save & Manage Regex

  • Current Version: 1
  • Save & Share
  • Community Library

Flavor

  • PCRE2 (PHP)
  • ECMAScript (JavaScript)
  • Python
  • Golang
  • Java
  • .NET 7.0 (C#)
  • Rust
  • PCRE (Legacy)
  • Regex Flavor Guide

Function

  • Match
  • Substitution
  • List
  • Unit Tests
Sponsors
There are currently no sponsors. Become a sponsor today!
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

Code Generator

Generated Code

import re regex = re.compile(r"(public|protected|private|static|\s) +[\w\<\>\[\]]+\s+(\w+) *\([^\)]*\)\s*(\{)") test_str = ("/*\n" " * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more\n" " * contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with\n" " * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.\n" " * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0\n" " * (the \"License\"); you may not use this file except in compliance with\n" " * the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at\n" " *\n" " * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0\n" " *\n" " * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software\n" " * distributed under the License is distributed on an \"AS IS\" BASIS,\n" " * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.\n" " * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and\n" " * limitations under the License.\n" " */\n" "package org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.interactive.documentnavigation.outline;\n\n" "import org.apache.pdfbox.cos.COSDictionary;\n" "import org.apache.pdfbox.cos.COSName;\n\n" "/**\n" " * This represents an outline in a pdf document.\n" " *\n" " * @author <a href=\"mailto:ben@benlitchfield.com\">Ben Litchfield</a>\n" " * @version $Revision: 1.2 $\n" " */\n" "public final class PDDocumentOutline extends PDOutlineNode\n" "{\n\n" " \n" " static java.io.BufferedWriter bfn;\n" " static java.io.BufferedWriter bf;\n\n" " /**\n" " * Default Constructor.\n" " */\n" " public PDDocumentOutline()\n" " {\n" " \n" " getCOSDictionary().setName(COSName.TYPE, COSName.OUTLINES.getName());\n" " \n" " }\n\n" " /**\n" " * Constructor for an existing document outline.\n" " *\n" " * @param dic The storage dictionary.\n" " */\n" " public PDDocumentOutline( COSDictionary dic )\n" " {\n" " super( dic );\n" " getCOSDictionary().setName(COSName.TYPE, COSName.OUTLINES.getName());\n" " }\n\n" " @Override\n" " public boolean isNodeOpen()\n" " {\n" " return true;\n" " }\n\n" " @Override\n" " public void openNode()\n" " {\n" " // The root of the outline hierarchy is not an OutlineItem and cannot be opened or closed\n" " }\n\n" " @Override\n" " public void closeNode()\n" " {\n" " // The root of the outline hierarchy is not an OutlineItem and cannot be opened or closed\n" " }\n" "}\n") matches = regex.finditer(test_str) for match_num, match in enumerate(matches, start=1): print(f"Match {match_num} was found at {match.start()}-{match.end()}: {match.group()}") for group_num, group in enumerate(match.groups(), start=1): print(f"Group {group_num} found at {match.start(group_num)}-{match.end(group_num)}: {group}")

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