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 single character of: a, b, c or d
    [[ab][cd]]
  • 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]
  • Character class intersection
    [\w&&[^\d]]
  • 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

use strict; my $str = '"Maximilian Milde" <max.milde@freenet.de>,<Telefonkonferenz@telefonkonferenz.de>, "Model Woman, Petra" <muster114@googlemail.com>, \'Sample Lady, Eva\' <eva.muda@gmx.net>, "\'Sample Man, Bernhard\'" <Mustermann.bernhard@t-online.de>, "\'Sample Woman, Ute\'" <utemusterfrau@gmail.com>, "\'Sample, Gisela\'" <Giselamuster50@gmx.de>, \'Mumann, Helmut\' <hemumann@googlemail.com>, "\'Mustermann, Alexander\'" <AlexanderMustermann@web.de>, "\'Muster, Vera\'" <v.muster@web.de>, "\'sample woman, Sandra"" <sandra.Musterfrau@gmx.net>, "\'Schubert, Ina"" <inas31@gmx.de, Seitz, Irmtraud, Irmtraud.s.e@googlemail.com, Kutz, Holger, Claudia Krüger, Milde, F... Mannheim'; my $regex = qr/(?:[A-Za-z0-9!#$%&'*+/=?.^_`{|}~-]+(?:.[a-z0-9!#$%&'*+/=?^_`{|}~-]+)*|\"(?:[x01-x08x0bx0cx0e-x1fx21x23-x5bx5d-x7f]|[x01-x09x0bx0cx0e-x7f])*\")@(?:(?:[a-z0-9](?:[a-z0-9-]*[a-z0-9])?.)+[a-z0-9](?:[a-z0-9-]*[a-z0-9])?|[(?:(?:(2(5[0-5]|[0-4][0-9])|1[0-9][0-9]|[1-9]?[0-9])).){3}(?:(2(5[0-5]|[0-4][0-9])|1[0-9][0-9]|[1-9]?[0-9])|[a-z0-9-]*[a-z0-9]:(?:[x01-x08x0bx0cx0e-x1fx21-x5ax53-x7f]|[x01-x09x0bx0cx0e-x7f])+)])/mp; if ( $str =~ /$regex/g ) { print "Whole match is ${^MATCH} and its start/end positions can be obtained via \$-[0] and \$+[0]\n"; # print "Capture Group 1 is $1 and its start/end positions can be obtained via \$-[1] and \$+[1]\n"; # print "Capture Group 2 is $2 ... and so on\n"; } # ${^POSTMATCH} and ${^PREMATCH} are also available with the use of '/p' # Named capture groups can be called via $+{name}

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 Perl, please visit: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html