Regular Expressions

Anchors

^
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

Character Classes

\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

POSIX

[: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

Assertions

?=
Lookahead assertion
?!
Negative lookahead
?<=
Lookbehind assertion
?!= or ?<!
Negative lookbehind
?>
Once-only Subexp­ression
?()
Condition [if then]
?()|
Condition [if then else]
?#
Comment
 

Quanti­fiers

*
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 Sequences

\
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.

Common Metach­ara­cters

^
[
.
$
{
*
(
\
+
)
|
?
<
>
The escape character is usually \

Special Characters

\n
New line
\r
Carriage return
\t
Tab
\v
Vertical tab
\f
Form feed
\xxx
Octal character xxx
\xhh
Hex character hh
 

Groups and Ranges

.
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.

Pattern Modifiers

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

String Replac­ement

$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 $.