Regular Expressions 101

Save & Share

  • Regex Version: ver. 61
  • Update Regex
    ctrl+⇧+s
  • Save new Regex
    ctrl+s
  • Add to Community Library

Flavor

  • PCRE2 (PHP >=7.3)
  • PCRE (PHP <7.3)
  • ECMAScript (JavaScript)
  • Python
  • Golang
  • Java 8
  • .NET 7.0 (C#)
  • Rust
  • Regex Flavor Guide

Function

  • Match
  • Substitution
  • List
  • Unit Tests

Tools

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
No Match

~
~
gmx

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

$re = '~^ (?P<datetime>\d{2}/\d{2}/\d{4}[^-]+)\s+-\s+ (?P<name>[^:]+):\s+ (?P<message>[\s\S]+?) (?=^\d{2}|\Z)~mx'; $str = '15/11/2017, 10:59 p.m. - ‪Some random name‬: Thats sounds like crow who don\'t know marathi🤣 15/11/2017, 11:00 p.m. - Pratik: 😂😂 15/11/2017, 11:00 p.m. - Dhiraj Kadam: Msging language bruh😂😂😂 15/11/2017, 11:00 p.m. - Rushiraj Msc: 😂😂😂😂 15/11/2017, 11:00 p.m. - Shreyas : 💩💩💩 15/11/2017, 11:01 p.m. - Abhisek Joshi: 😂😂 15/11/2017, 11:01 p.m. - ‪Some Name: Age piche ke students 2 ... 2 subject padho and copy.. nahi ata to thoko bhindhass 15/11/2017, 11:01 p.m. - Shreyas : 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼💯 15/11/2017, 11:02 p.m. - ‪Some name: Respect the term autonomous 15/11/2017, 11:02 p.m. - ‪Some Name : Gharguti ...😅 14/11/2017, 9:54 a.m. - Abhisek Josh: 😂😂😂 14/11/2017, 10:37 a.m. - ‪SOme Name: Do you still remember those awkward days in schools during Exams ? When a bright student tells the invigilator that question 4 has a problem, but you have already answered it...😳😜 When a fellow student asks for a graph paper, but you are finished and did not see anywhere where it was required...😧 😁😁 When the invigilator says jump question 6 we will rectify it later, but it was the question you enjoyed most when answering...😟 😱😲 When you see people busy using rulers and you are wondering what is going on...😣😫😫 When you hear your friends arguing after the exam whether the answer to question 5 was 35.5% or 36.5% and your answer was 1800 😩😏 The cream. When the other students asked for 4-5 additional answer sheets and You had two pages empty in the main answer sheet😨😰😱 See where you have reached in life inspite of those moments...things are not permanent...enjoy life! 😃😃 Only for those who enjoyed their school life😂😂😂 Top 10 Dialogue of teacher 👉 If you are not interested then you may leave the class. 👉 This class is worse than a fish market. 👉 Are you here to waste your parents money? 👉 Tell me when you all have finished talking. 👉 Why are u laughing? Come here n tell us we\'ll also laugh. 👉 Do you think teachers are fools to teach you? 👉 Don\'t try to act oversmart with me. 👉 Why do u come to school when you don\'t want to study. 👉 The previous batch was 100 times better than yours. 👉 If you want to talk then u may get out from the class. And the best one 👉 You yes you... I am talking to you only, don\'t look back.. 😄😄 . . . I\'m sure that the last line made all of you remember and smile . 14/11/2017, 10:42 a.m. - ‪Name‬: 👍👍👍 14/11/2017, 11:15 a.m. - Sanesh Sagvekar: Whos in clg now 14/11/2017, 11:15 a.m. - Sanesh Sagvekar: 😄😄😄👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼'; preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0); // Print the entire match result var_dump($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