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

Substitution

Processing...

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

$re = '/<((?!a|\/a)[^>]*)>\s*/m'; $str = '<html> <head> <meta http-equiv=\\"Content-Type\\" content=\\"text/html; charset=utf-8\\"> <meta content=\\"text/html; charset=us-ascii\\"> <meta name=\\"ProgId\\" content=\\"Word.Document\\"> <meta name=\\"Generator\\" content=\\"Microsoft Word 15\\"> <meta name=\\"Originator\\" content=\\"Microsoft Word 15\\"> <style> <!-- @font-face \\t{font-family:\\"Cambria Math\\"} @font-face \\t{font-family:Calibri} p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal \\t{margin:0cm; \\tmargin-bottom:.0001pt; \\tfont-size:11.0pt; \\tfont-family:\\"Calibri\\",sans-serif} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink \\t{color:#0563C1; \\ttext-decoration:underline} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed \\t{color:#954F72; \\ttext-decoration:underline} p.msonormal0, li.msonormal0, div.msonormal0 \\t{margin-right:0cm; \\tmargin-left:0cm; \\tfont-size:11.0pt; \\tfont-family:\\"Calibri\\",sans-serif} span.EmailStyle18 \\t{font-family:\\"Calibri\\",sans-serif} .MsoChpDefault \\t{font-size:10.0pt; \\tfont-family:\\"Calibri\\",sans-serif} @page WordSection1 \\t{margin:72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt} div.WordSection1 \\t{} --> </style> </head> <body lang=\\"EN-GB\\" link=\\"#0563C1\\" vlink=\\"#954F72\\" style=\\"\\"> <div class=\\"WordSection1\\"> <p class=\\"MsoNormal\\">I NEED TO HAVE THIS STRING</p> <p class=\\"MsoNormal\\"> </p> <p class=\\"MsoNormal\\"><span style=\\"\\">AND I NEED THE FOLLOWING ANCHOR <a href=\\"google.com\\"> THIS ONE</a>.</span></p> <p class=\\"MsoNormal\\"> </p> </div> </body> </html> '; $subst = ""; $result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str); echo "The result of the substitution is ".$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 PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php