Regular Expressions 101

^start of line

Group 1([a-zA-Z]+?)

Character Class[a-zA-Z]+?

+?matches at least one character from the set below:

a-zone character from a (97₁₀) to z (122₁₀) (case sensitive)

A-Zone character from A (65₁₀) to Z (90₁₀) (case sensitive)

Group 2([-\s'][a-zA-Z]+)*?

*?repeats the group contents below any number of times:

Character Class[-\s']

-the literal - (45₁₀ / 55₈ / 2D₁₆)

\sany whitespace character

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

Character Class[a-zA-Z]+

+matches at least one character from the set below:

a-zone character from a (97₁₀) to z (122₁₀) (case sensitive)

A-Zone character from A (65₁₀) to Z (90₁₀) (case sensitive)

$end of line

Global pattern flags

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

m modifier: multiline. Causes ^ and $ to match the start and end of each line, not only the start and end of the string

Detailed match information will be displayed here automatically.

Search reference

Regular Expression

^([a-zA-Z]+?)([-\s'][a-zA-Z]+)*?$

Test String
New


#should only start with alphabets
John
1John
-John
 John
\John
#Can contain spaces,- and ' but should not repeat consecutively, also there should be alphabets before and after allowed special chars
John Doe
John-Doe
John's Doe
John--Doe
John  Doe
John' s
John-Doe-

#Other special chars not allowed
John#Doe
J0hn
JON3

Regular Expression

Test StringNew

SubstitutionProcessing...

Test String
New

Substitution
Processing...