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
Processing...

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

import re regex = re.compile(r"<li><a.+?>(.+)?<\/.+>", flags=re.MULTILINE) test_str = ("!-- The following setting enables collapsible lists -->\n" " <p>\n" " <a href=\"#human\">Human</a></p>\n\n" " <p class=\"collapse-section\">\n" " <a class=\"collapsed collapse-toggle\" data-toggle=\"collapse\" \n" " href=#mammals>Mammals</a>\n" " <div class=\"collapse\" id=\"mammals\">\n" " <ul>\n" " <li><a href=\"#alpaca\">Alpaca</a>\n" " <li><a href=\"#armadillo\">Armadillo</a>\n" " <li><a href=\"#sequence_only\">Armadillo</a> (sequence only)\n" " <li><a href=\"#baboon\">Baboon</a>\n" " <li><a href=\"#bison\">Bison</a>\n" " <li><a href=\"#bonobo\">Bonobo</a>\n" " <li><a href=\"#brown_kiwi\">Brown kiwi</a>\n" " <li><a href=\"#bushbaby\">Bushbaby</a>\n" " <li><a href=\"#sequence_only\">Bushbaby</a> (sequence only)\n" " <li><a href=\"#cat\">Cat</a>\n" " <li><a href=\"#chimp\">Chimpanzee</a>\n" " <li><a href=\"#chinese_hamster\">Chinese hamster</a>\n" " <li><a href=\"#chinese_pangolin\">Chinese pangolin</a>\n" " <li><a href=\"#cow\">Cow</a>\n" " <li><a href=\"#crab-eating_macaque\">Crab-eating_macaque</a>\n" " <div class=\"gbFooterCopyright\">\n" " &copy; 2017 The Regents of the University of California. All \n" " Rights Reserved.\n" " <br>\n" " <a href=\"https://genome.ucsc.edu/conditions.html\">Conditions of \n" " Use</a>\n" " </div>") matches = regex.finditer(test_str) for match_num, match in enumerate(matches, start=1): print(f"Match {match_num} was found at {match.start()}-{match.end()}: {match.group()}") for group_num, group in enumerate(match.groups(), start=1): print(f"Group {group_num} found at {match.start(group_num)}-{match.end(group_num)}: {group}")

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 Python, please visit: https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html