Regular Expressions 101

Save & Manage Regex

  • Current Version: 1
  • Save & Share
  • Community Library

Flavor

  • PCRE2 (PHP)
  • ECMAScript (JavaScript)
  • Python
  • Golang
  • Java
  • .NET 7.0 (C#)
  • Rust
  • PCRE (Legacy)
  • Regex Flavor Guide

Function

  • Match
  • Substitution
  • List
  • Unit Tests
Sponsors
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

Generated Code

$re = '/^\+[\t ]\S.*\n(?:(?:[\t ]{2})+[-*+] \S.*\n)+/m'; $str = '__Advertisement :)__ ```mermaid graph TD A[Christmas] -->|Get money| B(Go shopping) B --> C{Let me think} C -->|One| D[Laptop] C -->|Two| E[iPhone] C -->|Three| F[Car] ``` ```mermaid graph TD A[Christmas] -->|Get money| B(Go shopping) B --> C{Let me think} C -->|One| D[Laptop] C -->|Two| E[iPhone] C -->|Three| F[Car] click A "index.html#link-clicked" "link test" click B testClick "click test" ``` - __[pica](https://nodeca.github.io/pica/demo/)__ - high quality and fast image resize in browser. - __[babelfish](https://github.com/nodeca/babelfish/)__ - developer friendly i18n with plurals support and easy syntax. You will like those projects! --- # h1 Heading 8-) ## h2 Heading ### h3 Heading #### h4 Heading ##### h5 Heading ###### h6 Heading ## Horizontal Rules ___ --- *** ## Typographic replacements Enable typographer option to see result. (c) (C) (r) (R) (tm) (TM) (p) (P) +- test.. test... test..... test?..... test!.... !!!!!! ???? ,, -- --- "Smartypants, double quotes" and \'single quotes\' ## Emphasis **This is bold text** __This is bold text__ *This is italic text* _This is italic text_ ~~Strikethrough~~ ## Blockquotes > Blockquotes can also be nested... >> ...by using additional greater-than signs right next to each other... > > > ...or with spaces between arrows. ## Lists Unordered + Create a list by starting a line with `+`, `-`, or `*` + Sub-lists are made by indenting 2 spaces: - Marker character change forces new list start: * Ac tristique libero volutpat at + Facilisis in pretium nisl aliquet - Nulla volutpat aliquam velit + Very easy! Ordered 1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet 2. Consectetur adipiscing elit 3. Integer molestie lorem at massa 1. You can use sequential numbers... 1. ...or keep all the numbers as `1.` Start numbering with offset: 57. foo 1. bar ## Code [^first] Inline `code` Indented code // Some comments line 1 of code line 2 of code line 3 of code Block code "fences" ``` Sample text here... ``` Syntax highlighting ``` js var foo = function (bar) { return bar++; }; console.log(foo(5)); ``` ## Tables | Option | Description | | ------ | ----------- | | data | path to data files to supply the data that will be passed into templates. | | engine | engine to be used for processing templates. Handlebars is the default. | | ext | extension to be used for dest files. | Right aligned columns | Option | Description | | ------:| -----------:| | data | path to data files to supply the data that will be passed into templates. | | engine | engine to be used for processing templates. Handlebars is the default. | | ext | extension to be used for dest files. | ## Links [link text](http://dev.nodeca.com) [link with title](http://nodeca.github.io/pica/demo/ "title text!") Autoconverted link https://github.com/nodeca/pica (enable linkify to see) ## Images ![Minion](https://octodex.github.com/images/minion.png) ![Stormtroopocat](https://octodex.github.com/images/stormtroopocat.jpg "The Stormtroopocat") Like links, Images also have a footnote style syntax ![Alt text][id] With a reference later in the document defining the URL location: [id]: https://octodex.github.com/images/dojocat.jpg "The Dojocat" ## Plugins The killer feature of `markdown-it` is very effective support of [syntax plugins](https://www.npmjs.org/browse/keyword/markdown-it-plugin). ### [Emojies](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-emoji) > Classic markup: :wink: :crush: :cry: :tear: :laughing: :yum: > > Shortcuts (emoticons): :-) :-( 8-) ;) see [how to change output](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-emoji#change-output) with twemoji. ### [Subscript](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-sub) / [Superscript](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-sup) - 19^th^ - H~2~O ### [\\<ins>](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-ins) ++Inserted text++ ### [\\<mark>](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-mark) ==Marked text== ### [Footnotes](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-footnote) Footnote 1 link[^first]. Footnote 2 link[^second]. Inline footnote^[Text of inline footnote] definition. Duplicated footnote reference[^second]. [^first]: Footnote **can have markup** and multiple paragraphs. [^second]: Footnote text. ### [Definition lists](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-deflist) Term 1 : Definition 1 with lazy continuation. Term 2 with *inline markup* : Definition 2 { some code, part of Definition 2 } Third paragraph of definition 2. _Compact style:_ Term 1 ~ Definition 1 Term 2 ~ Definition 2a ~ Definition 2b ### [Abbreviations](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-abbr) This is HTML abbreviation example. It converts "HTML", but keep intact partial entries like "xxxHTMLyyy" and so on. *[HTML]: Hyper Text Markup Language ### [Custom containers](https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it-container) ::: warning *here be dragons* :::'; preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0); // Print the entire match result var_dump($matches);

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 PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php