Regular Expressions Cheat Sheet

A regular expression (regex or regexp) is a sequence of characters that specifies 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.

The below tables assists you on how to use different regular expressions:

Regular Expression Basics

Character	Explanation
.	Anything. Any character except newline
a	The character a
ab	The string ab
a|b	a or b
a*	0 or more a's
\	Escapes a special character

Regular Expression Quantifiers

Character	Explanation
*	0 or more
+	1 or more
?	0 or 1
{2}	Exactly 2
{2, 5}	Between 2 and 5
{2,}	2 or more

Regular Expression Groups

Character	Explanation
(...)	Capturing group
(?P<Y>...)	Capturing group named Y
(?:...)	Non-capturing group
(?>...)	Atomic group
(?|...)	Duplicate group numbers
\Y	Match the Y'th captured group
(?P=Y)	Match the named group Y
(?R)	Recurse into entire pattern
(?Y)	Recurse into numbered group Y
(?&Y)	Recurse into named group Y
\g{Y}	Match the named or numbered group Y
\g<Y>	Recurse into named or numbered group Y
(?#...)	Comment

Regular Expression Character Classes

Character	Explanation
[ab-d]	One character of: a, b, c, d
[^ab-d]	One character except: a, b, c, d
[\b]	Backspace character
\d	One digit
\D	One non-digit
\s	One whitespace
\S	One non-whitespace
\w	One word character
\W	One non-word character

Regular Expression Assertions

Character	Explanation
^	Start of string
\A	Start of string, ignores m flag
$	End of string
\Z	End of string, ignores m flag
\b	Word boundary
\B	Non-word boundary
\G	Start of match
(?=...)	Positive lookahead
(?!...)	Negative lookahead
(?<=...)	Positive lookbehind
(?<!...)	Negative lookbehind
(?()|)	Conditional

Regular Expression Flags

Character	Explanation
i	Ignore case
m	^ and $ match start and end of line
s	. matches newline as well
x	Allow spaces and comments
J	Duplicate group names allowed
U	Ungreedy quantifiers
(?iLmsux)	Set flags within regex

Regular Expression Special Characters

Character	Explanation
\n	Newline
\r	Carriage return
\t	Tab
\0	Null character
\YYY	Octal character YYY
\xYY	Hexadecimal character YY
\x{YY}	Hexadecimeal character YY
\cY	Control character Y

Regular Expression Posix Classes

Character	Explanation
[:alnum:]	Letters and digits
[:alpha:]	Letters
[:ascii:]	Ascii codes 0 - 127
[:blank:]	Space or tab only
[:cntrl:]	Control characters
[:digit:]	Decimal digits
[:graph:]	Visible characters, except space
[:lower:]	Lowercase letters
[:print:]	Visible characters
[:punct:]	Visible punctuation characters
[:space:]	Whitespace
[:upper:]	Uppercase letters
[:word:]	Word characters
[:xdigit:]	Hexadecimal digits