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

/
/
g

Test String

Substitution

Processing...

Code Generator

Generated Code

$re = '/(?:(?!<(?:field|exclGroup)(?!\w)(?>"[\S\s]*?"|\'[\S\s]*?\'|(?:(?!\/>)[^>])?)+>)[\S\s])*(?><(field|exclGroup)(?=(?:[^>"\']|"[^"]*"|\'[^\']*\')*?\sname\s*=\s*(?:([\'"])([\S\s]*?)\2))\s+(?>"[\S\s]*?"|\'[\S\s]*?\'|(?:(?!\/>)[^>])?)+>)(?:(?&core)|)<\/\1\s*>(?:(?!<(?:field|exclGroup)(?!\w)(?>"[\S\s]*?"|\'[\S\s]*?\'|(?:(?!\/>)[^>])?)+>)[\S\s])*(?(DEFINE)(?<core>(?>(?><([\w:]+)(?>"[\S\s]*?"|\'[\S\s]*?\'|(?:(?!\/>)[^>])?)+>)(?:(?&core)|)<\/\5\s*>|(?!<\/[\w:]+\s*>)(?>[\S\s]))+))/'; $str = '<field xmlns="http://www.xfa.org/schema/xfa-template/2.8/" y="0in" x="0.343mm" w="8.881pt" h="9.108pt" name="detcon_recreation_only"> <ui> <checkButton size="8.881pt"> <border> <edge stroke="lowered"/> <fill/> </border> </checkButton> </ui> <font size="0pt" typeface="Adobe Pi Std"/> <para vAlign="middle"/> <value> <text>0</text> </value> <items> <text>1</text> <text>0</text> <text/> </items> </field> <field xmlns="http://www.xfa.org/schema/xfa-template/2.8/" name="detcon_special_housing" y="5.393mm" w="27.94mm" h="4.134mm" x="0.343mm"> <ui> <choiceList> <border> <edge stroke="lowered"/> </border> <margin/> </choiceList> </ui> <font typeface="Arial Narrow" size="6pt"/> <margin topInset="0mm" bottomInset="0mm" leftInset="0mm" rightInset="0mm"/> <para vAlign="middle"/> <value> <text>NA</text> </value> <items> <text>Not Applicable</text> <text>Hotel Component</text> </items> <items save="1" presence="hidden"> <text>NA</text> <text>HC</text> </items> </field> <exclGroup xmlns="http://www.xfa.org/schema/xfa-template/2.8/" name="detcon_photo_taken" x="0in" y="0in"> <?templateDesigner itemValuesSpecified 1?> <field w="12.446mm" h="3.825mm" name="lb_yes"> <ui> <checkButton size="1.7639mm" shape="round"> <border> <?templateDesigner StyleID apcb1?> <edge/> <fill/> </border> </checkButton> </ui> <font typeface="Myriad Pro"/> <margin leftInset="1mm" rightInset="1mm"/> <para vAlign="middle"/> <caption placement="right" reserve="7.698mm"> <para vAlign="middle" spaceAbove="0pt" spaceBelow="0pt" textIndent="0pt" marginLeft="0pt" marginRight="0pt"/> <font size="8pt" typeface="Arial Narrow" baselineShift="0pt"/> <value> <text>YES</text> </value> </caption> <value> <text xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:nil="true"/> </value> <items> <text>1</text> </items> </field> <field w="28.702mm" h="3.825mm" name="lb_no" x="13.233mm"> <ui> <checkButton size="1.7639mm" shape="round"> <border> <?templateDesigner StyleID apcb1?> <edge/> <fill/> </border> </checkButton> </ui> <font typeface="Myriad Pro"/> <margin leftInset="1mm" rightInset="1mm"/> <para vAlign="middle"/> <caption placement="right" reserve="23.954mm"> <para vAlign="middle" spaceAbove="0pt" spaceBelow="0pt" textIndent="0pt" marginLeft="0pt" marginRight="0pt"/> <font size="8pt" typeface="Arial Narrow" baselineShift="0pt"/> <value> <text>NO (see comments)</text> </value> </caption> <value> <text xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:nil="true"/> </value> <items> <text>0</text> </items> </field> <border> <edge presence="hidden"/> </border> <?templateDesigner expand 1?></exclGroup>'; $subst = "VALUES (12345,\"$3\",\"/Tx\", \"\", \"N\", \"Y\"),\r\n"; $result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str); echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;

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