Understanding Regular Expressions and Pattern Matching
Regular expressions (regex) are powerful patterns used to match and manipulate text. They are essential tools for developers working with string manipulation, data validation, text parsing, and search functionality.
Our free regex tester tool helps developers test and debug regular expressions instantly. Whether you're validating user input, parsing data, or searching through text, regex testing is crucial for ensuring your patterns work correctly.
Why Regex Testing Matters
- Pattern Validation: Test regex patterns before implementing them in your code to catch errors early.
- Debugging: Identify issues with complex regex patterns by testing them against sample text.
- Learning: Understand how regex patterns work by testing them with different inputs.
- Optimization: Test different regex approaches to find the most efficient pattern.
Common Regex Use Cases
- Email address validation
- Phone number formatting
- URL extraction and validation
- Password strength checking
- Data extraction from text
- Text search and replace operations
- Input sanitization
Regex Flags
- g (global): Find all matches, not just the first one
- i (case-insensitive): Case-insensitive matching
- m (multiline): ^ and $ match line breaks, not just string boundaries
Our tool processes all regex testing locally in your browser, ensuring complete privacy. No data is sent to any server, making it safe for sensitive patterns and text.
Code Examples
JavaScript - Basic Regex
// Email validation
const emailRegex = /^[^\s@]+@[^\s@]+\.[^\s@]+$/;
const email = 'user@example.com';
console.log(emailRegex.test(email)); // true
// Phone number validation
const phoneRegex = /^\+?[1-9]\d{1,14}$/;
const phone = '+1234567890';
console.log(phoneRegex.test(phone)); // true
// Extract numbers
const text = 'Price: $99.99';
const numbers = text.match(/\d+\.?\d*/g);
console.log(numbers); // ["99.99"]
JavaScript - Regex with Flags
// Global flag - find all matches
const text = 'The cat sat on the mat';
const matches = text.match(/at/g);
console.log(matches); // ["at", "at", "at"]
// Case-insensitive flag
const caseInsensitive = /hello/i;
console.log(caseInsensitive.test('Hello')); // true
console.log(caseInsensitive.test('HELLO')); // true
// Multiline flag
const multiline = /^start/m;
const text2 = 'end\nstart';
console.log(multiline.test(text2)); // true
// Combined flags
const combined = /pattern/gi;
const result = 'Pattern PATTERN pattern'.match(combined);
console.log(result); // ["Pattern", "PATTERN", "pattern"]
JavaScript - Advanced Regex
// Extract URLs
const urlRegex = /https?:\/\/[^\s]+/g;
const text = 'Visit https://example.com and http://test.com';
const urls = text.match(urlRegex);
console.log(urls); // ["https://example.com", "http://test.com"]
// Password strength (8+ chars, uppercase, lowercase, number)
const passwordRegex = /^(?=.*[a-z])(?=.*[A-Z])(?=.*\d)[a-zA-Z\d]{8,}$/;
const password = 'Secure123';
console.log(passwordRegex.test(password)); // true
// Replace with regex
const text2 = 'Hello World';
const replaced = text2.replace(/world/i, 'Universe');
console.log(replaced); // "Hello Universe"