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

/
/

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

# coding=utf8 # the above tag defines encoding for this document and is for Python 2.x compatibility import re regex = r"(?s).*\bIngredients\b(.*?)\bPreparation\b" test_str = ("Recipes & Menus\n" "Expert Advice\n" "Ingredients\n" "Holidays & Events\n" "Community\n" "Video\n" "SUMMER COOKING\n" "Lentil and Brown Rice Soup\n" "Gourmet January 1991\n" "3.5/4\n" "reviews (83)\n" "90%\n" "make it again\n" "Some soups genuinely do inspire a devotion akin to love, and this is one of\n" "them. In the cold of winter, when Gourmet editors ponder the matter of what soup\n" "Cook\n" "Reviews (83)\n" "YIELD: Makes about 14 cups, serving 6 to 8\n" "Ingredients\n" "5 cups chicken broth\n" "1 1/2 cups lentils, picked over and rinsed\n" "1 cup brown rice\n" "a 32- to 35-ounce can tomatoes, drained, reserving the juice, and chopped\n" "3 carrots, halved lengthwise and cut crosswise into 1/4-inch pieces\n" "1 onion, chopped\n" "1 stalk of celery, chopped\n" "3 garlic cloves, minced\n" "1/2 teaspoon crumbled dried basil\n" "1/2 teaspoon crumbled dried orégano\n" "1/4 teaspoon crumbled dried thyme\n" "1 bay leaf\n" "1/2 cup minced fresh parsley leaves\n" "2 tablespoons cider vinegar, or to taste\n" "Preparation\n" "In a heavy kettle combine the broth, 3 cups water, the lentils, the rice, the tomatoes with the reserved juice,") matches = re.search(regex, test_str) if matches: print ("Match was found at {start}-{end}: {match}".format(start = matches.start(), end = matches.end(), match = matches.group())) for groupNum in range(0, len(matches.groups())): groupNum = groupNum + 1 print ("Group {groupNum} found at {start}-{end}: {group}".format(groupNum = groupNum, start = matches.start(groupNum), end = matches.end(groupNum), group = matches.group(groupNum))) # Note: for Python 2.7 compatibility, use ur"" to prefix the regex and u"" to prefix the test string and substitution.

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