What is Regular Expression?
Regular expression is a group of characters or symbols which is used to find a specific pattern from a text.
A regular expression is a pattern that is matched against a subject string from left to right. The word "Regular expression" is a
mouthful, you will usually find the term abbreviated as "regex" or "regexp". Regular expression is used for replacing a text within
a string, validating form, extract a substring from a string based upon a pattern match, and so much more.
Imagine you are writing an application and you want to set the rules for when a user chooses their username. We want to
allow the username to contain letters, numbers, underscores and hyphens. We also want to limit the number of
characters in username so it does not look ugly. We use the following regular expression to validate a username:
Above regular expression can accept the strings john_doe, jo-hn_doe and john12_as. It does not match Jo because that string
contains uppercase letter and also it is too short.
Table of Contents
1. Basic Matchers
A regular expression is just a pattern of characters that we use to perform search in a text. For example, the regular expression
the means: the letter t, followed by the letter h, followed by the letter e.
"the" => The fat cat sat on the mat.
The regular expression 123 matches the string 123. The regular expression is matched against an input string by comparing each
character in the regular expression to each character in the input string, one after another. Regular expressions are normally
case-sensitive so the regular expression The would not match the string the.
"The" => The fat cat sat on the mat.
2. Meta Characters
Meta characters are the building blocks of the regular expressions. Meta characters do not stand for themselves but instead are
interpreted in some special way. Some meta characters have a special meaning and are written inside square brackets.
The meta characters are as follows:
2.1 Full stop
Full stop . is the simplest example of meta character. The meta character . matches any single character. It will not match return
or newline characters. For example, the regular expression .ar means: any character, followed by the letter a, followed by the
letter r.
".ar" => The car parked in the garage.
2.2 Character set
Character sets are also called character class. Square brackets are used to specify character sets. Use a hyphen inside a character set to
specify the characters' range. The order of the character range inside square brackets doesn't matter. For example, the regular
expression [Tt]he means: an uppercase T or lowercase t, followed by the letter h, followed by the letter e.
"[Tt]he" => The car parked in the garage.
A period inside a character set, however, means a literal period. The regular expression ar[.] means: a lowercase character a, followed by letter r, followed by a period . character.
"ar[.]" => A garage is a good place to park a car.
2.2.1 Negated character set
In general, the caret symbol represents the start of the string, but when it is typed after the opening square bracket it negates the
character set. For example, the regular expression [^c]ar means: any character except c, followed by the character a, followed by
the letter r.
"[^c]ar" => The car parked in the garage.
2.3 Repetitions
Following meta characters +, * or ? are used to specify how many times a subpattern can occur. These meta characters act
differently in different situations.
2.3.1 The Star
The symbol * matches zero or more repetitions of the preceding matcher. The regular expression a* means: zero or more repetitions
of preceding lowercase character a. But if it appears after a character set or class then it finds the repetitions of the whole
character set. For example, the regular expression [a-z]* means: any number of lowercase letters in a row.
"[a-z]*" => The car parked in the garage #21.
The * symbol can be used with the meta character . to match any string of characters .*. The * symbol can be used with the
whitespace character \s to match a string of whitespace characters. For example, the expression \s*cat\s* means: zero or more
spaces, followed by lowercase character c, followed by lowercase character a, followed by lowercase character t, followed by
zero or more spaces.
"\s*cat\s*" => The fat cat sat on the concatenation.
2.3.2 The Plus
The symbol + matches one or more repetitions of the preceding character. For example, the regular expression c.+t means: lowercase
letter c, followed by at least one character, followed by the lowercase character t. It needs to be clarified that t is the last t in the sentence.
"c.+t" => The fat cat sat on the mat.
2.3.3 The Question Mark
In regular expression the meta character ? makes the preceding character optional. This symbol matches zero or one instance of
the preceding character. For example, the regular expression [T]?he means: Optional the uppercase letter T, followed by the lowercase
character h, followed by the lowercase character e.
"[T]he" => The car is parked in the garage.
"[T]?he" => The car is parked in the garage.
2.4 Braces
In regular expression braces that are also called quantifiers are used to specify the number of times that a
character or a group of characters can be repeated. For example, the regular expression [0-9]{2,3} means: Match at least 2 digits but not more than 3 (
characters in the range of 0 to 9).
"[0-9]{2,3}" => The number was 9.9997 but we rounded it off to 10.0.
We can leave out the second number. For example, the regular expression [0-9]{2,} means: Match 2 or more digits. If we also remove
the comma the regular expression [0-9]{3} means: Match exactly 3 digits.
"[0-9]{2,}" => The number was 9.9997 but we rounded it off to 10.0.
"[0-9]{3}" => The number was 9.9997 but we rounded it off to 10.0.
2.5 Character Group
Character group is a group of sub-patterns that is written inside Parentheses (...). As we discussed before that in regular expression
if we put a quantifier after a character then it will repeat the preceding character. But if we put quantifier after a character group then
it repeats the whole character group. For example, the regular expression (ab)* matches zero or more repetitions of the character "ab".
We can also use the alternation | meta character inside character group. For example, the regular expression (c|g|p)ar means: lowercase character c,
g or p, followed by character a, followed by character r.
"(c|g|p)ar" => The car is parked in the garage.
2.6 Alternation
In regular expression Vertical bar | is used to define alternation. Alternation is like a condition between multiple expressions. Now,
you may be thinking that character set and alternation works the same way. But the big difference between character set and alternation
is that character set works on character level but alternation works on expression level. For example, the regular expression
(T|t)he|car means: uppercase character T or lowercase t, followed by lowercase character h, followed by lowercase character e
or lowercase character c, followed by lowercase character a, followed by lowercase character r.
"(T|t)he|car" => The car is parked in the garage.
2.7 Escaping special character
Backslash \ is used in regular expression to escape the next character. This allows to to specify a symbol as a matching character
including reserved characters { } [ ] / \ + * . $ ^ | ?. To use a special character as a matching character prepend \ before it.
For example, the regular expression . is used to match any character except newline. Now to match . in an input string the regular
expression (f|c|m)at\.? means: lowercase letter f, c or m, followed by lowercase character a, followed by lowercase letter
t, followed by optional . character.
"(f|c|m)at\.?" => The fat cat sat on the mat.
2.8 Anchors
In regular expressions, we use anchors to check if the matching symbol is the starting symbol or ending symbol of the
input string. Anchors are of two types: First type is Caret ^ that check if the matching character is the start
character of the input and the second type is Dollar $ that checks if matching character is the last character of the
input string.
2.8.1 Caret
Caret ^ symbol is used to check if matching character is the first character of the input string. If we apply the following regular
expression ^a (if a is the starting symbol) to input string abc it matches a. But if we apply regular expression ^b on above
input string it does not match anything. Because in input string abc "b" is not the starting symbol. Let's take a look at another
regular expression ^(T|t)he which means: uppercase character T or lowercase character t is the start symbol of the input string,
followed by lowercase character h, followed by lowercase character e.
"(T|t)he" => The car is parked in the garage.
"^(T|t)he" => The car is parked in the garage.
2.8.2 Dollar
Dollar $ symbol is used to check if matching character is the last character of the input string. For example, regular expression
(at\.)$ means: a lowercase character a, followed by lowercase character t, followed by a . character and the matcher
must be end of the string.
"(at\.)" => The fat cat. sat. on the mat.
"(at\.)$" => The fat cat. sat. on the mat.
3. Shorthand Character Sets
Regular expression provides shorthands for the commonly used character sets, which offer convenient shorthands for commonly used
regular expressions. The shorthand character sets are as follows:
| Shorthand | Description |
|---|---|
| . | Any character except new line |
| \w | Matches alphanumeric characters: [a-zA-Z0-9_]
|
| \W | Matches non-alphanumeric characters: [^\w]
|
| \d | Matches digit: [0-9]
|
| \D | Matches non-digit: [^\d]
|
| \s | Matches whitespace character: [\t\n\f\r\p{Z}]
|
| \S | Matches non-whitespace character: [^\s]
|
4. Lookaround
Lookbehind and lookahead sometimes known as lookaround are specific type of non-capturing group (Use to match the pattern but not
included in matching list). Lookaheads are used when we have the condition that this pattern is preceded or followed by another certain
pattern. For example, we want to get all numbers that are preceded by $ character from the following input string $4.44 and $10.88.
We will use following regular expression (?<=\$)[0-9\.]* which means: get all the numbers which contain . character and are preceded
by $ character. Following are the lookarounds that are used in regular expressions:
| Symbol | Description |
|---|---|
| ?= | Positive Lookahead |
| ?! | Negative Lookahead |
| ?<= | Positive Lookbehind |
| ?<! | Negative Lookbehind |
4.1 Positive Lookahead
The positive lookahead asserts that the first part of the expression must be followed by the lookahead expression. The returned match
only contains the text that is matched by the first part of the expression. To define a positive lookahead, parentheses are used. Within
those parentheses, a question mark with equal sign is used like this: (?=...). Lookahead expression is written after the equal sign inside
parentheses. For example, the regular expression [T|t]he(?=\sfat) means: optionally match lowercase letter t or uppercase letter T,
followed by letter h, followed by letter e. In parentheses we define positive lookahead which tells regular expression engine to match
The or the which are followed by the word fat.
"[T|t]he(?=\sfat)" => The fat cat sat on the mat.
4.2 Negative Lookahead
Negative lookahead is used when we need to get all matches from input string that are not followed by a pattern. Negative lookahead
defined same as we define positive lookahead but the only difference is instead of equal = character we use negation ! character
i.e. (?!...). Let's take a look at the following regular expression [T|t]he(?!\sfat) which means: get all The or the words from
input string that are not followed by the word fat precedes by a space character.
"[T|t]he(?!\sfat)" => The fat cat sat on the mat.
4.3 Positive Lookbehind
Positive lookbehind is used to get all the matches that are preceded by a specific pattern. Positive lookbehind is denoted by
(?<=...). For example, the regular expression (?<=[T|t]he\s)(fat|mat) means: get all fat or mat words from input string that
are after the word The or the.
"(?<=[T|t]he\s)(fat|mat)" => The fat cat sat on the mat.
4.4 Negative Lookbehind
Negative lookbehind is used to get all the matches that are not preceded by a specific pattern. Negative lookbehind is denoted by
(?<!...). For example, the regular expression (?<!(T|t)he\s)(cat) means: get all cat words from input string that
are not after the word The or the.
"(?<![T|t]he\s)(cat)" => The cat sat on cat.
5. Flags
Flags are also called modifiers because they modify the output of a regular expression. These flags can be used in any order or
combination, and are an integral part of the RegExp.
| Flag | Description |
|---|---|
| i | Case insensitive: Sets matching to be case-insensitive. |
| g | Global Search: Search for a pattern throughout the input string. |
| m | Multiline: Anchor meta character works on each line. |
5.1 Case Insensitive
The i modifier is used to perform case-insensitive matching. For example, the regular expression /The/gi means: uppercase letter
T, followed by lowercase character h, followed by character e. And at the end of regular expression the i flag tells the
regular expression engine to ignore the case. As you can see we also provided g flag because we want to search for the pattern in
the whole input string.
"The" => The fat cat sat on the mat.
"/The/gi" => The fat cat sat on the mat.
5.2 Global search
The g modifier is used to perform a global match (find all matches rather than stopping after the first match). For example, the
regular expression/.(at)/g means: any character except new line, followed by lowercase character a, followed by lowercase
character t. Because we provided g flag at the end of the regular expression now it will find every matches from whole input
string.
"/.(at)/" => The fat cat sat on the mat.
"/.(at)/g" => The fat cat sat on the mat.
5.3 Multiline
The m modifier is used to perform a multi-line match. As we discussed earlier anchors (^, $) are used to check if pattern is
the beginning of the input or end of the input string. But if we want that anchors works on each line we use m flag. For example, the
regular expression /at(.)?$/gm means: lowercase character a, followed by lowercase character t, optionally anything except new
line. And because of m flag now regular expression engine matches pattern at the end of each line in a string.
"/.at(.)?$/" => The fat
cat sat
on the mat.
"/.at(.)?$/gm" => The fat
cat sat
on the mat.
Top comments (12)
thankyou so much
Very good introduction, thanks for the writeup. My only beef with it is that it does not explain the \b metacharacter, which is both one of the most confusing and one of the most useful tokens in regex. Confusing because it does not match a character at all, in fact it matches nothing (like ^ and $) but it does so only at the places where a word ends or begins, which is why it’s so useful…
I didn't know about
\b, thanks for sharing it.The title of this post was one that (for me) didn't inspire excitement so much as it felt like "I've been developing for 14 years, I should probably know regex better", but this was actually more exciting than I expected. Helpful and concise explanations plus tons of examples made this easy to grok, which felt great. Being able to teach isn't easy. Awesome job on this.
Very clear explanation on how to work with regex. Great article!
Best tutorial I have read on regex! Would have been nice if at the end you would have thrown some harder regex's as examples just for practising what we have just learned.
WOW!
I'd love to have had this article way earlier in my career!!
Easy to follow, clear examples; really demystifying.
Stand up applause!
Thank you so much.
A good refresh on Regex. Thanks. And you haven't lived until you've done back references in Regex.
What ia diff between
/xyz/and/(xyz)/?Thank you, this is very useful đź‘Ť
nice Zishan