Regular Expressions 101

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  • Match
  • Substitution
  • List
  • Unit Tests (10)

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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

/
/

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

#include <StringConstants.au3> ; to declare the Constants of StringRegExp #include <Array.au3> ; UDF needed for _ArrayDisplay and _ArrayConcatenate Local $sRegex = "^(?!Andrea)(?:[\S\s](?!Andrea))*+$" Local $sString = "Example for Stack Overflow:" & @CRLF & _ "http://stackoverflow.com/questions/164414/how-to-inverse-match-with-regex" & @CRLF & _ "http://stackoverflow.com/a/38846455/1188377" & @CRLF & _ "" & @CRLF & _ "This test string is NOT a match because it contains the text "Andrea". If it didn't contain that word, it would be a match." & @CRLF & _ "" & @CRLF & _ "For a variety of test cases, click the "Unit Tests" button on the left side of the page. It looks like a checkmark. Then, click the "play" icon above the test list." Local $aArray = StringRegExp($sString, $sRegex, $STR_REGEXPARRAYFULLMATCH) ; Present the entire match result _ArrayDisplay($aArray, "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 AutoIt, please visit: https://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/functions/StringRegExp.htm