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

/
/
gmx

Test String

Code Generator

Generated Code

import java.util.regex.Matcher; import java.util.regex.Pattern; public class Example { public static void main(String[] args) { final String regex = "(?(DEFINE)\n" + " (?# Date )\n" + " (?# Day ranges )\n" + " (?<d_day28>0[1-9]|1\\d|2[0-8]|[1-9])\n" + " (?<d_day29>0[1-9]|1\\d|2\\d|[1-9])\n" + " (?<d_day30>0[1-9]|1\\d|2\\d|30|[1-9])\n" + " (?<d_day31>0[1-9]|1\\d|2\\d|3[01]|[1-9])\n" + " (?# Month specifications )\n" + " (?<d_month28>0?2)\n" + " (?<d_month29>0?2)\n" + " (?<d_month30>0?[469]|11)\n" + " (?<d_month31>0?[13578]|1[02])\n" + " (?# Year specifications )\n" + " (?<d_year>\\d+)\n" + " (?<d_yearLeap>(?:\\d*?(?:(?:0[48]|[13579][26]|[2468][048])|(?:(?:[02468][048]|[13579][26])00))|[48]00|[48])(?=\\D|\\b))\n" + " (?# Valid date formats )\n" + " (?<d_format>\n" + " (?&d_day28)-(?&d_month28)-(?&d_year)|\n" + " (?&d_day29)-(?&d_month29)-(?&d_yearLeap)|\n" + " (?&d_day30)-(?&d_month30)-(?&d_year)|\n" + " (?&d_day31)-(?&d_month31)-(?&d_year)\n" + " )\n" + ")\n" + "\\b(?&d_format)\\b"; final String string = "29-02-2016 - valid\n" + "29-02-2017 - invalid (not leap year)\n" + "30-03-2016 - valid\n" + "29-2-2017 - invalid (not leap year)\n" + "28-2-2017 - valid\n" + "2-2-2017 - valid\n" + "31-11-2017 - invalid (November has 30 days)\n" + "30-11-2017 - valid"; final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex, Pattern.MULTILINE | Pattern.COMMENTS); final Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(string); while (matcher.find()) { System.out.println("Full match: " + matcher.group(0)); for (int i = 1; i <= matcher.groupCount(); i++) { System.out.println("Group " + i + ": " + matcher.group(i)); } } } }

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