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

/
/
gi

Test String

Code Generator

Language

Generated Code

$re = '/<b>(?:(?!<\/?b>).)*?<\/b>(?:(?!<\/?b>).)*?<font color=darkslategray>.*?<\/font>/i'; $str = 'naive <b>na·ive</b><br><div style="padding-left:0.5em;">(<VR><span style="color:#006400;font-style:italic">or</span> <b>na·ïve</b></VR>) <font color=darkslategray>/nɑˈiːv, naıˈiːv/</font> <span style="color:#006400;font-style:italic">adj</span> [<i>more ~; most ~</i>]<br></div><div style="padding-left:1em;"><b>:</b> having or showing a lack of experience or knowledge <b>:</b> innocent or simple<br></div><div style="padding-left:1.5em;"><font color="#004A95">a <i>naive</i> belief that all people are good</font><br></div><div style="padding-left:1.5em;"><font color="#004A95">a <i>naive</i> view of the world</font><br></div><div style="padding-left:1.5em;"><font color="#004A95">I <i>naively</i> believed that we could fix the problem.</font><br></div><div style="padding-left:1em;"><b>na·ïve·té</b> (<VR><span style="color:#006400;font-style:italic">also</span> <b>na·ive·te</b> <span style="color:#006400;font-style:italic">or</span> <b>na·ive·té</b></VR>) <font color=darkslategray>/nɑˌiːvˈteı, naıˌiːvˈteı/</font> <span style="color:#006400;font-style:italic">noun</span> [<span style="color:#006400;font-style:italic">noncount</span>]<br></div><div style="padding-left:1.5em;"><font color="#004A95">political <i>naïveté</i></font><br></div><div style="padding-left:1em;"><b>na·ive·ty</b> (<VR><span style="color:#006400;font-style:italic">also</span> <b>na·ïve·ty</b></VR>) <font color=darkslategray>/nɑˈiːvəti, naıˈiːvəti/</font> <span style="color:#006400;font-style:italic">noun</span> [<span style="color:#006400;font-style:italic">noncount</span>] <span style="color:#006400;font-style:italic">chiefly Brit</span><br></div><div style="padding-left:1.5em;"><font color="#004A95">political <i>naïvety</i></font><br></div>'; preg_match_all($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