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

~
~
igm

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

import java.util.regex.Matcher; import java.util.regex.Pattern; public class Example { public static void main(String[] args) { final String regex = "(\\s*)(\\d+)?(\\.\\d+)?(\\s*)(?i:years|year|yrs|y|months|month|m)?(\\s*)(/)?(\\s*)(\\d+)?(\\.\\d+)?(\\s*)(?i:years|year|yrs|y|months|month|m)?(\\s*)(-)?(\\s*)(\\d+)(\\.\\d+)?(\\s*)?(?i:years|year|yrs|y|months|month|m)"; final String string = "1.5Year\n" + "1.6years\n" + "1.7y\n" + "123.2h\n" + "23.4CM\n" + "2Mw\n" + "3wm\n" + "01Y\n" + "1-2y\n" + "39/3-4y\n" + "39-34yrs\n" + "3.5 - 4.5y\n" + "4.6 / 4.5 - 6.5y\n" + "9.5-10.5yEAR\n" + "7-7.5Y\n" + "2m-3y\n" + "7 m-7.5 Y\n" + "7m - 8.5y\n" + "7 m - 8 y\n" + "7.5 m -8.5 y\n\n\n"; final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex, Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE | Pattern.MULTILINE); final Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(string); while (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