Regular Expressions 101

Pro

^start of line

Group 1([^-\n]+)

Negated Character Class[^-\n]+

+matches at least one character outside the set below:

-the literal - (45₁₀ / 55₈ / 2D₁₆)

\na line-feed (newline) character (ASCII 10)

Negated Character Class[^-\n]{2}

{2}matches exactly 2 characters outside the set below:

-the literal - (45₁₀ / 55₈ / 2D₁₆)

\na line-feed (newline) character (ASCII 10)

Non-Capturing Group(?:-.*)?

?repeats the group contents below at most once:

-the literal - (45₁₀ / 55₈ / 2D₁₆)

.*any Unicode character (except for line terminators), repeated any number of times

$end of line

Global pattern flags

g modifier: global. Finds all matches instead of stopping after the first

m modifier: multiline. Causes ^ and $ to match the start and end of each line, not only the start and end of the string

Detailed match information will be displayed here automatically.

25 tokens

^([^-\n]+)[^-\n]{2}(?:-.*)?$

New

abcde
jklmno-pqrs
abcd
jklmno----pqrs
jklmno----abdapqrs
a-
aa--
aaa---
----
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm------
-a-a-a-aaaa

abcde
jklmno-pqrs
abcd
jklmno----pqrs
jklmno----abdapqrs
a-
aa--
aaa---
----
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm------
-a-a-a-aaaa