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

r"
"
g

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

use strict; my $str = '<tr> <td><a href="/wiki/Nanga_Parbat" title="Nanga Parbat">Nanga Parbat</a></td> <td style="text-align: right;">8126&#160;m<br /> 26,660&#160;ft</td> <td><span class="nowrap"><span class="flagicon"><a href="/wiki/Pakistan" title="Pakistan"><img alt="Pakistan" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/32/Flag_of_Pakistan.svg/23px-Flag_of_Pakistan.svg.png" width="23" height="15" class="thumbborder" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/32/Flag_of_Pakistan.svg/35px-Flag_of_Pakistan.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/32/Flag_of_Pakistan.svg/45px-Flag_of_Pakistan.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="900" data-file-height="600" /></a></span> <a href="/wiki/Pakistan" title="Pakistan">Pakistan</a></span></td> <td style="text-align: right;">3 Jul 1953</td> <td><span class="nowrap"><span class="flagicon"><a href="/wiki/Austria" title="Austria"><img alt="Austria" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Flag_of_Austria.svg/23px-Flag_of_Austria.svg.png" width="23" height="15" class="thumbborder" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Flag_of_Austria.svg/35px-Flag_of_Austria.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Flag_of_Austria.svg/45px-Flag_of_Austria.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="900" data-file-height="600" /></a></span> <a href="/wiki/Hermann_Buhl" title="Hermann Buhl">Hermann Buhl</a></span></td> <td style="text-align: right;">26 Feb 2016</td> <td><span class="nowrap"><span class="flagicon"><a href="/wiki/Italy" title="Italy"><img alt="Italy" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/03/Flag_of_Italy.svg/23px-Flag_of_Italy.svg.png" width="23" height="15" class="thumbborder" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/03/Flag_of_Italy.svg/35px-Flag_of_Italy.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/03/Flag_of_Italy.svg/45px-Flag_of_Italy.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="1500" data-file-height="1000" /></a></span> <a href="/wiki/Simone_Moro" title="Simone Moro">Simone Moro</a></span><br /> <span class="nowrap"><span class="flagicon"><a href="/wiki/Pakistan" title="Pakistan"><img alt="Pakistan" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/32/Flag_of_Pakistan.svg/23px-Flag_of_Pakistan.svg.png" width="23" height="15" class="thumbborder" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/32/Flag_of_Pakistan.svg/35px-Flag_of_Pakistan.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/32/Flag_of_Pakistan.svg/45px-Flag_of_Pakistan.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="900" data-file-height="600" /></a></span> <a href="/w/index.php?title=Muhammad_Ali_Sadpara&amp;action=edit&amp;redlink=1" class="new" title="Muhammad Ali Sadpara (page does not exist)">Muhammad Ali Sadpara</a></span><br /> <span class="nowrap"><span class="flagicon"><a href="/wiki/Spain" title="Spain"><img alt="Spain" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9a/Flag_of_Spain.svg/23px-Flag_of_Spain.svg.png" width="23" height="15" class="thumbborder" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9a/Flag_of_Spain.svg/35px-Flag_of_Spain.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9a/Flag_of_Spain.svg/45px-Flag_of_Spain.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="750" data-file-height="500" /></a></span> <a href="/w/index.php?title=Alex_Txikon&amp;action=edit&amp;redlink=1" class="new" title="Alex Txikon (page does not exist)">Alex Txikon</a></span></td> <td style="text-align: right;">335</td> <td style="text-align: right;">68</td> <td style="text-align: right;">20.3%</td> <td style="text-align: right;">77%</td> <td style="text-align: right;">5.5%</td> </tr> '; my $regex = qr/<td>((?:<span.*\n*){3})</td>/p; if ( $str =~ /$regex/g ) { print "Whole match is ${^MATCH} and its start/end positions can be obtained via \$-[0] and \$+[0]\n"; # print "Capture Group 1 is $1 and its start/end positions can be obtained via \$-[1] and \$+[1]\n"; # print "Capture Group 2 is $2 ... and so on\n"; } # ${^POSTMATCH} and ${^PREMATCH} are also available with the use of '/p' # Named capture groups can be called via $+{name}

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 Perl, please visit: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html