Regular Expressions 101

Explanation

Pro

^start of line

Character Class[A-Z]

A-Zone character from A (65₁₀) to Z (90₁₀) (case sensitive)

Non-Capturing Group(?:[a-z]|\b[,.'-]\b)+

+repeats the group contents below at least once:

1st Alternative[a-z]

Character Class[a-z]

a-zone character from a (97₁₀) to z (122₁₀) (case sensitive)

2nd Alternative\b[,.'-]\b

\ban ASCII word boundary

Character Class[,.'-]

,the literal , (44₁₀ / 54₈ / 2C₁₆)

.the literal . (46₁₀ / 56₈ / 2E₁₆)

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

-the literal - (45₁₀ / 55₈ / 2D₁₆)

\ban ASCII word boundary

Non-Capturing Group(?: [A-Z](?:[a-z]|\b[,.'-]\b)+)*

*repeats the group contents below any number of times:

the literal (32₁₀ / 40₈ / 20₁₆)

Character Class[A-Z]

A-Zone character from A (65₁₀) to Z (90₁₀) (case sensitive)

Non-Capturing Group(?:[a-z]|\b[,.'-]\b)+

+repeats the group contents below at least once:

1st Alternative[a-z]

Character Class[a-z]

a-zone character from a (97₁₀) to z (122₁₀) (case sensitive)

2nd Alternative\b[,.'-]\b

\ban ASCII word boundary

Character Class[,.'-]

,the literal , (44₁₀ / 54₈ / 2C₁₆)

.the literal . (46₁₀ / 56₈ / 2E₁₆)

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

-the literal - (45₁₀ / 55₈ / 2D₁₆)

\ban ASCII word boundary

$end of line

Global pattern flags

g modifier: global. Finds all matches instead of stopping after the first

m modifier: multiline. Causes ^ and $ to match the start and end of each line, not only the start and end of the string

Detailed match information will be displayed here automatically.

26 tokens

^[A-Z](?:[a-z]|\b[,.'-]\b)+(?: [A-Z](?:[a-z]|\b[,.'-]\b)+)*$

New

Jane Doe
Foo Bar
bar bar
A..............
A, , ...

Jane Doe
Foo Bar
bar bar
A..............
A, , ...