Regex snippets

05 Jun, 2026

Line

^ = line start
$ = line end

$.*?$

\( = escape left parenthesis
.*? = match all
- . = any character
- * = any number of times (0 or more, as opposed to + for 1 or more)
- ? = optionally (i.e. catch the instances in which there is nothing between brackets)
\) = escape right parenthesis

. = match any single character.
\w = match any single alphanumeric character: 0-9, a-z, A-Z, and _ (underscore).
\d = match any single digit.
\s = match any single whitespace character.

Example regex: a.c

abc   // match
a c   // match
azc   // match
ac    // no match
abbc  // no match

? = match 0 or 1 occurrences of a character

Example regex: a.?c

abc   // match
a c   // match
azc   // match
ac    // match
abbc  // no match

Use square brackets [] to match any characters in a set.

Example 1 regex: a[bcd]c

abc   // match
acc   // match
adc   // match
ac    // no match
abbc  // no match

Example 2 regex: a[0-7]c

a0c   // match
a3c   // match
a7c   // match
a8c   // no match
ac    // no match
a55c  // no match

[^] = match any single character except for any of the characters that come after the chevron ^.

Example regex: a[^abc]c

aac   // no match
abc   // no match
acc   // no match
a c   // match
azc   // match
ac    // no match
azzc  // no match