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

/
/
gm

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*[0-9]+\\)\\[[a-zA-Z0-9\\s:]*\\|\\s*[0-9]{1,5}\\:[0-9]{3}\\s*(?:\\[[0-9]{1,3}\\:[0-9]{1,3}\\])?\\]\\{[0-9]{1,4}\\}[a-zA-Z0-9\\s:@\\/~]+\\(?:.+\\)[\\$|#]\\s{1}(?<!\\n)(.+)$"; final String string = "( 8)[Thu Sep 01 09:44:38| 0:000]{157}jhyland@jhmac:~(✓)$ whoami\n" + "( 8)[Thu Sep 01 09:44:42| 0:000]{158}jhyland@jhmac:~(✓)$ uptime\n" + "( 8)[Thu Sep 01 09:44:45| 1:000]{159}jhyland@jhmac:~(✓)$ pwd Documents/scripts/\n" + "( 8)[Thu Sep 01 09:44:51| 1:000]{160}jhyland@jhmac:~(✓)$ false\n" + "( 8)[Thu Sep 01 09:44:54| 0:000]{161}jhyland@jhmac:~(123)$ d\n" + "( 8)[Thu Sep 01 09:44:38| 0:000]{157}jhyland@jhmac:~(✓)$ whoami\n" + "( 8)[Thu Sep 01 09:44:42| 0:000]{158}jhyland@jhmac:~(✓)$ uptime\n" + "( 8)[Thu Sep 01 09:44:45| 1:000]{159}jhyland@jhmac:~(✓)$ pwd Documents/scripts/\n" + "( 8)[Thu Sep 01 09:44:51| 1:000]{160}jhyland@jhmac:~(✓)$ false\n" + "( 8)[Thu Sep 01 09:44:54| 0:000]{161}jhyland@jhmac:~(0)$\n" + "( 7)[Thu Sep 01 09:17:30| 1:000]{1}jhyland@jhmac:~(✓)$ man idk\n" + "( 7)[Thu Sep 01 09:17:32| 2:000]{2}jhyland@jhmac:~(0)$ man file\n" + "( 7)[Thu Sep 01 09:50:51| 1998:000 [00:33]]{3}jhyland@jhmac:~(✓)$ \n" + "( 7)[Thu Sep 01 09:54:08| 0:000]{1}jhyland@jhmac:~(✓)$ . ~/.bash_profile\n" + "( 7)[Thu Sep 01 09:54:14| 0:000]{2}jhyland@jhmac:~(✓)$ return_code\n" + "( 7)[Thu Sep 01 09:54:17| 0:000]{3}jhyland@jhmac:~(0)$ sudo su -\n" + "( 7)[Thu Sep 01 10:05:49| 0:000]{1}root@jhmac:~(✓)# whoami\n" + "( 7)[Thu Sep 01 10:06:24| 0:000]{2}root@jhmac:~(✓)# cd ~\n" + "( 7)[Thu Sep 01 10:06:29| 0:000]{3}root@jhmac:~(✓)# cd /tmp\n" + "( 7)[Thu Sep 01 09:54:08| 0:000]{1}jhyland@jhmac:~(✓)$ . ~/.bash_profile\n" + "( 7)[Thu Sep 01 09:54:14| 0:000]{2}jhyland@jhmac:~(✓)$ return_code\n" + "( 7)[Thu Sep 01 09:54:17| 0:000]{3}jhyland@jhmac:~(0)$ sudo su -\n" + "( 7)[Thu Sep 01 10:05:49| 0:000]{1}root@jhmac:~(✓)# whoami\n" + "( 7)[Thu Sep 01 10:06:24| 0:000]{2}root@jhmac:~(✓)# cd ~\n" + "( 7)[Thu Sep 01 10:06:29| 0:000]{3}root@jhmac:~(✓)# cd /tmp\n" + "( 7)[Thu Sep 01 10:06:33| 0:000]{4}root@jhmac:/tmp(✓)# cd ~/.ssh/\n" + "( 7)[Thu Sep 01 10:15:35| 0:000]{5}root@jhmac:~/.ssh(✓)# exit\n" + "( 7)[Thu Sep 01 10:15:39| 591:000 [00:09]]{4}jhyland@jhmac:~(✓)$ cd Documents/scripts/javascript/\n" + "( 7)[Thu Sep 01 10:15:44| 0:000]{5}jhyland@jhmac:~/Documents/scripts/javascript(✓)$ ls"; final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex, 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