Regular Expressions 101

Explanation

Pro

\ban ASCII word boundary

Non-Capturing Group(?:[\w'-]{1,3}\W+[\w'-]{4,}|[\w'-]{4,}\W+[\w'-]{1,3}|[\w'-]{4,})

1st Alternative[\w'-]{1,3}\W+[\w'-]{4,}

Character Class[\w'-]{1,3}

{1,3}matches between 1 and 3 characters from the set below:

\wany word character

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

-the literal - (45₁₀ / 55₈ / 2D₁₆)

\W+any non-word character, repeated at least once

Character Class[\w'-]{4,}

{4,}matches at least 4 characters from the set below:

\wany word character

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

-the literal - (45₁₀ / 55₈ / 2D₁₆)

2nd Alternative[\w'-]{4,}\W+[\w'-]{1,3}

Character Class[\w'-]{4,}

{4,}matches at least 4 characters from the set below:

\wany word character

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

-the literal - (45₁₀ / 55₈ / 2D₁₆)

\W+any non-word character, repeated at least once

Character Class[\w'-]{1,3}

{1,3}matches between 1 and 3 characters from the set below:

\wany word character

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

-the literal - (45₁₀ / 55₈ / 2D₁₆)

3rd Alternative[\w'-]{4,}

Character Class[\w'-]{4,}

{4,}matches at least 4 characters from the set below:

\wany word character

'the literal ' (39₁₀ / 47₈ / 27₁₆)

-the literal - (45₁₀ / 55₈ / 2D₁₆)

\ban ASCII word boundary

Global pattern flags

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

Match Information

Detailed match information will be displayed here automatically.

Quick Reference

25 tokens

Regular Expression

\b(?:[\w'-]{1,3}\W+[\w'-]{4,}|[\w'-]{4,}\W+[\w'-]{1,3}|[\w'-]{4,})\b

An elephant in the garden 
history of elephants
Algebra A B-movies

Have you visted Calculus A?
I was in Calculus b

Substitution

An elephant in the garden 
history of elephants
Algebra A B-movies

Have you visted Calculus A?
I was in Calculus b