Regular Expressions 101

Save & Share

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

/
/

Test String

Code Generator

Generated Code

import java.util.regex.Matcher; import java.util.regex.Pattern; public class Example { public static void main(String[] args) { final String regex = "[(bitrate:\\ )] (\\d*) [(kb\\/s)]"; final String string = "ffmpeg version git-2012-01-25-247d30a Copyright (c) 2000-2012 the FFmpeg developers\n" + " built on Jan 25 2012 16:56:18 with gcc 4.6.2\n" + " configuration: --extra-cflags=-I../static/include --extra-ldflags='-L../static/lib -static' --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-static --disable-shared --disable-debug --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-x11grab --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libx264 --enable-libspeex --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libfreetype --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libxavs --enable-libtheora --enable-libvo-aacenc --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --disable-ffserver\n" + " libavutil 51. 34.101 / 51. 34.101\n" + " libavcodec 53. 59.100 / 53. 59.100\n" + " libavformat 53. 30.100 / 53. 30.100\n" + " libavdevice 53. 4.100 / 53. 4.100\n" + " libavfilter 2. 60.100 / 2. 60.100\n" + " libswscale 2. 1.100 / 2. 1.100\n" + " libswresample 0. 6.100 / 0. 6.100\n" + " libpostproc 52. 0.100 / 52. 0.100\n" + "Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '3825402d75f04cadad96fa9f3af62c82.mp4':\n" + " Metadata:\n" + " major_brand : mp42\n" + " minor_version : 0\n" + " compatible_brands: mp41isom\n" + " creation_time : 2016-09-30 16:14:06\n" + " Duration: 00:00:15.04, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1609 kb/s\n" + " Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (Constrained Baseline) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 1152x720 [SAR 1:1 DAR 8:5], 1611 kb/s, 30.30 fps, 30.30 tbr, 30k tbn, 60 tbc\n" + " Metadata:\n" + " creation_time : 2016-09-30 16:14:06\n" + " handler_name : VideoHandler\n" + "At least one output file must be specified\n"; final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex); final Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(string); if (matcher.find()) { System.out.println("Full match: " + matcher.group(0)); for (int i = 1; i <= matcher.groupCount(); i++) { System.out.println("Group " + i + ": " + matcher.group(i)); } } } }

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 Java, please visit: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/regex/Pattern.html