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
Processing...

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

use strict; my $str = '16/10/1991 16-10-1991 16.10.1991 1991/16/10 1991-16-10 1991.16.10 10/16/1991 10-16-1991 10.16.1991 1991-10-16 1991/10/16 2016-2-29 2020-2-29 2024-2-29 2028-2-29 2032-2-29 2036-2-29 2040-2-29 5304-2-29 1991.10.16 91-10-16 91/10/16 91.10.16 01/01/2000 31/01/2000 32/01/2000 01/1/2000 01/1/01 29/02/2000 28/02/2001 29/02/2003 30/04/2000 31/04/2000 31/07/2000 31/08/2000 31/09/2000 01/12/2000 01/15/2000 '; my $regex = qr/^((\d{2}(([02468][048])|([13579][26]))[\-\/\s]?((((0?[13578])|(1[02]))[\-\/\s]?((0?[1-9])|([1-2][0-9])|(3[01])))|(((0?[469])|(11))[\-\/\s]?((0?[1-9])|([1-2][0-9])|(30)))|(0?2[\-\/\s]?((0?[1-9])|([1-2][0-9])))))|(\d{2}(([02468][1235679])|([13579][01345789]))[\-\/\s]?((((0?[13578])|(1[02]))[\-\/\s]?((0?[1-9])|([1-2][0-9])|(3[01])))|(((0?[469])|(11))[\-\/\s]?((0?[1-9])|([1-2][0-9])|(30)))|(0?2[\-\/\s]?((0?[1-9])|(1[0-9])|(2[0-8]))))))(\s(((0?[1-9])|(1[0-9])|(2[0-3]))\:([0-5][0-9])((\s)|(\:([0-5][0-9])))?))?$/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