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
  • Match everything enclosed
    (?:...)
  • Capture everything enclosed
    (...)
  • 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

/
/
xm

Test String

Substitution

Processing...

Code Generator

Generated Code

$re = '/^ (?<FirstLine> # First line capturing group (?<Passport>P) # Passport character capturing group (P char, length 1) (?<PassportType>.) # Passport Type (any char, generally <, length 1) (?<IssuingCountry>[AFG]{3}) # To be completed with the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country codes (length 3) # Or in alternative it can be checked for char only as # (?<IssuingCountry>[A-Z<]{3}) if check state not necessary (?<PassportOwner> # Passport owner capturing group !Does not check for length 39! (?<Surname>[A-Z]+) # Surname, it has to be followed by << << (?<GivenName> # Given Name (?:[A-Z]+<?)+ ) [<]+ ){1} ) \n (?<SecondLine> # Second Line capturing group (?<PassportNumber>[A-Z0-9<]{9}) # Passport number, length 9, padded with < (?<CheckDigit19>[0-9]{1}) # Check digit for position 1 to 9 (?<Nationality>\g{IssuingCountry}) # Nationality, follows the same rule as match group 4 (?<DoB> # Date Of Birth (?<DoBYear>[0-9]{2}) (?<DoBMonth>(?:0[1-9]|1[0-2])) (?<DoBDay>(?:0[1-9]|(?:1|2)[0-9]|3[01])) ) (?<CheckDigit1419>[0-9]) # Check digit for position 14 to 19 (?<Sex>[MF<]) # Sex (Male, Female or not defined) (?<Expiral> # Expiral date (?<ExpiralYear>[0-9]{2}) # W (?<ExpiralMonth>(?:0[1-9]|1[0-2])) (?<ExpiralDay>(?:0[1-9]|(?:1|2)[0-9]|3[01])) ) (?<CheckDigit2227>[0-9]) # Check digit for position 22 to 27 (?<PersonalNumber>[A-Z0-9<]{14}) # Personal number padded with < (?<CheckDigit2942>[0-9<]) # Check digit for position 29 to 42 (can be < empty) (?<CheckDigitF>[0-9]) # Check digit ) $/xm'; $str = 'P<AFGERIKSSON<<ANNA<MARIA<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< L898902C<3AFG6908061F9406236ZE184226B<<<<<14 '; $subst = ""; $result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str, 1); echo "The result of the substitution is ".$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