| ^ | Start of string, or start of line in multi-line pattern |
| \A | Start of string |
| $ | End of string, or end of line in multi-line pattern |
| \Z | End of string |
| \b | Word boundary |
| \B | Not word boundary |
| \< | Start of word |
| \> | End of word |
Tag: Regex Cheat Sheet
Regex Cheat Sheet tries to provide a basic reference for beginner and advanced developers, lower the entry barrier for newcomers, and help veterans refresh the old tricks. A regular expression (shortened as regex or regexp; also referred to as rational expression) is a sequence of characters that define a search pattern. Usually, such patterns are used by string-searching algorithms for “find” or “find and replace” operations on strings, or for input validation.
| \c | Control character |
| \s | White space |
| \S | Not white space |
| \d | Digit |
| \D | Not digit |
| \w | Word |
| \W | Not word |
| \x | Hexadecimal digit |
| \O | Octal digit |
| [:upper:] | Upper case letters |
| [:lower:] | Lower case letters |
| [:alpha:] | All letters |
| [:alnum:] | Digits and letters |
| [:digit:] | Digits |
| [:xdigit:] | Hexadecimal digits |
| [:punct:] | Punctuation |
| [:blank:] | Space and tab |
| [:space:] | Blank characters |
| [:cntrl:] | Control characters |
| [:graph:] | Printed characters |
| [:print:] | Printed characters and spaces |
| [:word:] | Digits, letters and underscore |
| ?= | Lookahead assertion |
| ?! | Negative lookahead |
| ?<= | Lookbehind assertion |
| ?!= or ?<! | Negative lookbehind |
| ?> | Once-only Subexpression |
| ?() | Condition [if then] |
| ?()| | Condition [if then else] |
| ?# | Comment |
| * | 0 or more | {3} | Exactly 3 |
| + | 1 or more | {3,} | 3 or more |
| ? | 0 or 1 | {3,5} | 3, 4 or 5 |
Add a ? to a quantifier to make it ungreedy.
| \ | Escape following character |
| \Q | Begin literal sequence |
| \E | End literal sequence |
“Escaping” is a way of treating characters which have a special meaning in regular expressions literally, rather than as special characters.
| ^ | [ | . | $ |
| { | * | ( | \ |
| + | ) | | | ? |
| < | > |
The escape character is usually \
| \n | New line |
| \r | Carriage return |
| \t | Tab |
| \v | Vertical tab |
| \f | Form feed |
| \xxx | Octal character xxx |
| \xhh | Hex character hh |
| . | Any character except new line (\n) |
| (a|b) | a or b |
| (…) | Group |
| (?:…) | Passive (non-capturing) group |
| [abc] | Range (a or b or c) |
| [^abc] | Not (a or b or c) |
| [a-q] | Lower case letter from a to q |
| [A-Q] | Upper case letter from A to Q |
| [0-7] | Digit from 0 to 7 |
| \x | Group/subpattern number “x” |
Ranges are inclusive.
| g | Global match |
| i * | Case-insensitive |
| m * | Multiple lines |
| s * | Treat string as single line |
| x * | Allow comments and whitespace in pattern |
| e * | Evaluate replacement |
| U * | Ungreedy pattern |
* PCRE modifier
| $n | nth non-passive group |
| $2 | “xyz” in /^(abc(xyz))$/ |
| $1 | “xyz” in /^(?:abc)(xyz)$/ |
| $` | Before matched string |
| $’ | After matched string |
| $+ | Last matched string |
| $& | Entire matched string |
Some regex implementations use \ instead of $.