Regular Expression Examples

A simple example for a regular expression is a (literal) string. For example, the Hello World regex will match the “Hello World” string. A “.” (dot) is another example for a regular expression. A dot matches any single character, for example: “a”, “z”, or “1”.

The following table lists example regular expressions and describes the pattern they would match.

Table 1.1  Regex Examples

Regular Expression

Matches

this is text 

Matches exactly “this is text”.

this\s+is\s+text 

Matches the word “this” followed by one or more whitespace characters followed by the word “is” followed by one or more whitespace characters followed by the word “text”.

^\d+(\.\d+)? 

^ defines that the patter must start at beginning of a new line. \d+ matches one or several digits. The ? makes the statement in brackets optional. \. matches “.”, parentheses are used for grouping. Matches for example “5”, “1.5” and “2.21”.