Regular Expressions 101

1st Alternative(?(DEFINE) # Definitions (?<skip>\#others.*?\#others) # What we should skip ) (?&skip)(*SKIP)(*FAIL) # Skip it

Definition Group(?(DEFINE) # Definitions (?<skip>\#others.*?\#others) # What we should skip )

Comment: Definitions

Group skip(?<skip>\#others.*?\#others)

\#the literal # (35₁₀ / 43₈ / 23₁₆)

othersthe literal text others (case sensitive)

.*?any character, repeated any number of times

\#the literal # (35₁₀ / 43₈ / 23₁₆)

othersthe literal text others (case sensitive)

Comment: What we should skip

(?&skip)calls group skip as a subroutine

(*SKIP)acts like (*PRUNE), but the next unanchored match attempt starts where (*SKIP) was reached instead of at the next subject character

(*FAIL)forces the current match attempt to fail at this position

Comment: Skip it

2nd Alternative (?<needle>batman\s+(\d+)\s+batman) # Match it

Group needle(?<needle>batman\s+(\d+)\s+batman)

batmanthe literal text batman (case sensitive)

\s+any whitespace character, repeated at least once

Group 3(\d+)

\d+a digit, repeated at least once

\s+any whitespace character, repeated at least once

batmanthe literal text batman (case sensitive)

Comment: Match it

Global pattern flags

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

s modifier: single line. Allows a dot to match line terminators

x modifier: extended. Ignores unescaped whitespace and comments outside character classes

Detailed match information will be displayed here automatically.

Search reference

Regular Expression

(?(DEFINE)                          # Definitions
    (?<skip>\#others.*?\#others)    # What we should skip
)
(?&skip)(*SKIP)(*FAIL)              # Skip it
|
(?<needle>batman\s+(\d+)\s+batman)  # Match it

New

#capture
batman 12345 batman
batman 234 batman
batman 35655 batman
batman 1311 batman
#capture

#others
batman 12345 batman
batman 234 batman
batman 35655 batman
batman 1311 batman
#others

Substitution

batman new-$3 batman