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]
  • 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
Processing...

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

import java.util.regex.Matcher; import java.util.regex.Pattern; public class Example { public static void main(String[] args) { final String regex = "[^\\n.!?]*((sorry)\\b[^.!?:\\n\\r]+\\b((bad|my|poor) english)|(english[^.!?:\\n\\r]+)\\b(tongue|language))\\b[^.!?:\\n\\r]*(?:[.!?:_*])*"; final String string = "About 30,500 instances of \"sorry bad english\". Once a post has been properly edited, this phrase is just noise, and should be deleted.\n\n" + "Some words. sorry for bad english. More text.\n\n" + "Sorry about my bad english. More text.\n\n" + "I'm sorry my english sucks. More text.\n\n" + "Sorry for my bad English . More text.\n\n" + "sorry for my bad english, _i explained it with everything i can._ More text.\n\n" + "Blah de blah de blah. ***And sorry for my bad english..***\n\n" + "Sorry for my English. More text.\n\n" + "Sorry for my english and thanks! More text.\n\n" + "I'm sorry for my poor english . More text.\n\n" + "And sorry for my english. More text.\n\n" + "## WBN\n\n" + "And sorry if my english got a little confusing... \n\n" + "pss: sorry, bad english\n\n" + "sorry, english isn't my main language =/.\n\n" + " English isn't my first language,\n\n" + "English isn't my native language.\n\n" + "English isn't my mother language.\n\n" + "As english isn't my mother tongue,\n\n" + "I don't know if I made myself clear as english isn't my native language,\n\n" + "English isn't my primary language,so \n\n" + "My English isn't mother tongue,\n\n" + "I hope u understand me, english isn't my mother tongue.\n\n" + "I'm sorry for my grammar or spelling mistakes, \n\n" + "First, sorry if my english isn't that great, this isn't my mother tongue. \n\n" + "Sorry for the bad English, English isn't my mother tongue so I'm trying to make the best of it.\n\n" + "Sorry for my bad English, it is not my native tongue \n\n" + "## Leave:\n\n" + "It is a sorry excuse for it.\n\n" + "He put some English on the ball.\n\n"; final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex, Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE); final Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(string); while (matcher.find()) { System.out.println("Full match: " + matcher.group(0)); for (int i = 1; i <= matcher.groupCount(); i++) { System.out.println("Group " + i + ": " + matcher.group(i)); } } } }

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 Java, please visit: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/regex/Pattern.html