Regular Expressions 101

1st Alternative\b\w{0,2}\b(?:'\w)?

\ban ASCII word boundary

\w{0,2}any word character, repeated between 0 and 2 times

\ban ASCII word boundary

Non-Capturing Group(?:'\w)?

?repeats the group contents below at most once:

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

\wany word character

2nd Alternative\b\w{3}(?!')\b

\ban ASCII word boundary

\w{3}any word character, repeated exactly 3 times

Negative Lookahead(?!')

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

\ban ASCII word boundary

3rd Alternative\b\w{5,}\b

\ban ASCII word boundary

\w{5,}any word character, repeated at least 5 times

\ban ASCII word boundary

4th Alternative('?\b\w+\b'?\w?)

Group 1('?\b\w+\b'?\w?)

'?optionally matches the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

\ban ASCII word boundary

\w+any word character, repeated at least once

\ban ASCII word boundary

'?optionally matches the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

\w?optionally matches any word character

Global pattern flags

g modifier: global. Finds all matches instead of stopping after the first

Detailed match information will be displayed here automatically.

Search reference

Regular Expression

\b\w{0,2}\b(?:'\w)?|\b\w{3}(?!')\b|\b\w{5,}\b|('?\b\w+\b'?\w?)

New

This Jon's dogs' 'bout there in word re'y.