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

r"
"
gmix

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""" <p\s* (?:[^>=]|='[^']*'|="[^"]*"|=[^'"][^\s>]*)*?\sclass=(['"]?)(?:body|bodydc)\1(?:\s|>) (?:([^<]*)|<(?!\/p)(?:[^>=]|='[^']*'|="[^"]*"|=[^'"][^\s>]*)*>)* (?=<\/p>) """ test_str = ("<p class=bodyDC style='text-indent:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;\n" "mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt' onmouseover=\" </p> \">We have no need to fear the future.&quot; So said\n" "bishop-elect H. George Anderson at a news conference immediately following his election as \n" "bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. &quot;[The\n" "future] belongs­ to God, untouched by human hands.&quot; At the beginning of a\n" "new ministry of leadership and pastoral oversight, such words from a bishop are\n" "obviously designed to project confidence and a profound sense of trust in the\n" "mission of the Church. They are words designed to inspire and empower the\n" "people of God for ministry.<o:p></o:p></span></p>\n" "Paragraph #2\n\n" "<p class=BODY><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>Ages\n" "ago, another prophet of the people stood at his station and peered into the\n" "future. The<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\"> </span>prophet Habakkuk poised on\n" "the rampart, scanned the horizon for the approaching enemy he knew was coming.\n" "As he waited, Habakkuk prayed to God asking why God was unresponsive to all\n" "this violence and destruction. In Habakkuk chapter 2 the prophet records God's\n" "answer to his questions about the future. God says to the fearful one, &quot;For\n" "there is still a vision for the appointed time;… If it seems to tarry, wait for\n" "it; it will surely come, it will not delay…the righteous live by faith&quot;\n" "(2:3-4).<o:p></o:p></span></p>") matches = re.finditer(regex, test_str, re.MULTILINE | re.IGNORECASE | 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