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
Processing...

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 = "(On\\s.*<\\n){0,1}(.*\\n(\\n){0,1}((^>+\\s?.*$)+\\n?)+)"; final String string = "test comment reply in email\n\n" + "On 10.05.2016 16:06, MRKTNG wrote:\n" + "> New Message\n" + "> MRKTNG <#> \n" + ">\n" + "> Your Profile Picture\n" + ">\n" + "> Lisa Radzishevsky <#>\n" + "> May 10, 2016, 8:06 am\n" + ">\n" + "> \n" + ">\n" + "> \n" + ">\n" + "> RE: Language learning\n" + ">\n" + "> test subject\n" + ">\n" + "> \n" + "> Reply \n" + "> <http://mandrillapp.com/track/click/30047086/vendori.local?p=eyJzIjoiLXVwS2lWRndOUXVibWozbmFVQ09qbVE3ZVdjIiwidiI6MSwicCI6IntcInVcIjozMDA0NzA4NixcInZcIjoxLFwidXJsXCI6XCJodHRwOlxcXC9cXFwvdmVuZG9yaS5sb2NhbFxcXC9kb2N1bWVudFxcXC80ODEwNCNkaXNjdXNzaW9uXCIsXCJpZFwiOlwiY2YwYWFhNWE1ZWY5NDZmMDhlNjJmNmRiMTAyZDY4Y2VcIixcInVybF9pZHNcIjpbXCJhYzE1OWI2NTM2YTM0ZDkzYmU1MzE5Y2VmN2IzOWEwZGQzMjY2NWRkXCJdfSJ9> \n" + ">\n" + ">\n" + "> © 2015 MRKTNG. All Rights Reserved.\n" + "> 1 W Superior St. • Chicago • IL 60654 USA <#>\n" + ">\n\n"; final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex, Pattern.MULTILINE | Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE); 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