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

/
/

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

$re = '/(?<type>[A-Za-z]{1})(?<subtype>[A-Za-z<]{1})(?<expcountry>[A-Za-z]{3})(?<docnumber>[0-9A-Za-z<]{9})(?<docnumbercheck>[0-9]{1})(?<complement>[0-9a-zA-Z<]{15})\n(?<birthdate>[0-9]{6})(?<birthcheck>[0-9]{1})(?<sex>[mfMF]{1})(?<expiredate>[0-9]{6})(?<expirecheck>[0-9]{1})(?<nacionality>[A-Za-z]{3})(?<optional>[a-zA-Z0-9<]{11})(?<linecheck>[0-9]{1})\n(?<lname>[A-Z]+)(?<lname2><[A-Z]+){0,}<<(?<spacing>[<]{0,})(?<fname>[A-Z]+)(?<mname1><[A-Z]+){0,}(?<namecomplement>[a-zA-Z<]+){0,}/'; $str = 'IDCHES0002068<8<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< 8102287F1301014CHE<<<<<<<<<<<4 VADIS<<QUO<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< I<UTOD231458907<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< 7408122F1204159UTO<<<<<<<<<<<6 ERIKSSON<<ANNA<MARIA<<<<<<<<<< I<NLDXI020DF236123456783<<<<<< 7208148F1108268NLD<<<<<<<<<<<9 VAN<DER<STEEN<<MARIANNE<LOUISE'; preg_match($re, $str, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE, 0); // Print the entire match result var_dump($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