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

/
/
g

Test String

Substitution

Processing...

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 = "<!--([\\s\\S]*?)-->"; final String string = "</ul>\n" + "<p>\n" + " Evaluation<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>\n" + "<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>\n" + "<o:AllowPNG />\n" + "<o:TargetScreenSize>1024x768</o:TargetScreenSize>\n" + "</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>\n" + "</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>\n" + "<w:WordDocument>\n" + "<w:View>Normal</w:View>\n" + "<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>\n" + "<w:HyphenationZone>21</w:HyphenationZone>\n" + "<w:PunctuationKerning />\n" + "<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas />\n" + "<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>\n" + "<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>\n" + "<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>\n" + "<w:Compatibility>\n" + "<w:BreakWrappedTables />\n" + "<w:SnapToGridInCell />\n" + "<w:WrapTextWithPunct />\n" + "<w:UseAsianBreakRules />\n" + "<w:DontGrowAutofit />\n" + "</w:Compatibility>\n" + "</w:WordDocument>\n" + "</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>\n" + "<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState=\"false\" LatentStyleCount=\"156\">\n" + "</w:LatentStyles>\n" + "</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>\n" + "<style>\n" + "/* Style Definitions */\n" + "table.MsoNormalTable\n" + "{mso-style-name:\"Normale Tabelle\";\n" + "mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;\n" + "mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;\n" + "mso-style-noshow:yes;\n" + "mso-style-parent:\"\";\n" + "mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;\n" + "mso-para-margin:0cm;\n" + "mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;\n" + "mso-pagination:widow-orphan;\n" + "font-size:10.0pt;\n" + "font-family:\"Times New Roman\";\n" + "mso-ansi-language:#0400;\n" + "mso-fareast-language:#0400;\n" + "mso-bidi-language:#0400;}\n" + "</style>\n" + "<![endif]--></p>\n" + "<ul>\n" + " <li>"; final String subst = ""; final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex); final Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(string); // The substituted value will be contained in the result variable final String result = matcher.replaceAll(subst); System.out.println("Substitution result: " + 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 Java, please visit: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/regex/Pattern.html