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 Foundation let pattern = #"(?:\/\/(?:\\\n|[^\n])*\n)|(?:\/\*[\s\S]*?\*\/)|((?:R"([^(\\\s]{0,16})\([^)]*\)\2")|(?:@"[^"]*?")|(?:"(?:\?\?'|\\\\|\\"|\\\n|[^"])*?")|(?:'(?:\\\\|\\'|\\\n|[^'])*?'))"# let regex = try! NSRegularExpression(pattern: pattern) let testString = #""" // /* /* This is a multi line comment // <- ignored since in a comment */ // "abc" word " // This is a single line comment char cha1[] = "This is a string containing a combination //", cha2[] = "This has /* a fake comment */ in it", cha3[] = "This is tough because of (ignore this //) \ line continueation", cha4[] = "Handle comments in strings with \" escaped quotes\ and escaped escaped escapes \\"; // This is a single line comment \ continuing on the next line void main() { int chInt = '\\b\''; printf("Hello world!"); cpp11_1(R"xy("/**/)xy"); cpp11_2(R"("/**/)"); cS(@"End at the right place\" /*and ignore this */); return 0; } """# let stringRange = NSRange(location: 0, length: testString.utf16.count) let substitutionString = #"\1"# let result = regex.stringByReplacingMatches(in: testString, range: stringRange, withTemplate: substitutionString) print(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 Swift 5.2, please visit: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/nsregularexpression