Regex Cheat Sheet

Emma Wedekind ✨ Feb 19 Updated on Feb 21, 2019 ・4 min read

#javascript

A regular expression, or 'regex', is used to match parts of a

string. Below is my cheat sheet for creating regular
expressions.

Testing a regex

Use the .test() method

let testString = "My test string";

let testRegex = /string/;
testRegex.test(testString);
Testing multiple patterns

Use the OR operator (|)

const regex = /yes|no|maybe/;

Ignoring case

Use the i flag for case insensitivity

const caseInsensitiveRegex = /ignore case/i;

const testString = 'We use the i flag to iGnOrE CasE';
caseInsensitiveRegex.test(testString); // true

Extracting the first match to a variable

Use the .match() function

const match = "Hello World!".match(/hello/i); // "Hello"

Extracting all of the matches in an array

Use the g flag

const testString = "Repeat repeat rePeAT";

const regexWithAllMatches = /Repeat/gi;
testString.match(regexWithAllMatches); // ["Repeat", "repeat", "rePeAT
Matching any character

Use the wildcard character . to be a placeholder for

any character

// To match "cat", "BAT", "fAT", "mat"

const regexWithWildcard = /.at/gi;
const testString = "cat BAT cupcake fAT mat dog";
const allMatchingWords = testString.match(regexWithWildcard); // ["cat

Matching a single character with multiple

possibilities

Use character classes, which allow you to define a

group of characters you wish to match
You place them inside square brackets []

// Match "cat" "fat" and "mat" but not "bat"

const regexWithCharClass = /[cfm]at/g;
const testString = "cat fat bat mat";
const allMatchingWords = testString.match(regexWithCharClass); // ["cat

Match letters of the alphabet

Use a range within the character set [a-z]

const regexWithCharRange = /[a-e]at/;

const catString = "cat";
const batString = "bat";
const fatString = "fat";

regexWithCharRange.test(catString); // true
regexWithCharRange.test(batString); // true
regexWithCharRange.test(fatString); // false

Match specific numbers and letters

You can also use the hyphen to match numbers

const regexWithLetterAndNumberRange = /[a-z0-9]/ig;

const testString = "Emma19382";
testString.match(regexWithLetterAndNumberRange) // true

Match a single, unknown character

To match a set of characters you don't want to have,

use the negated character set
To negate a character set, use a caret ^

const allCharsNotVowels = /[^aeiou]/gi;

const allCharsNotVowelsOrNumbers = /[^aeiou0-9]/gi;

Match characters that occur one or more times in a

row

Use the + symbol

const oneOrMoreAsRegex = /a+/gi;
const oneOrMoreSsRegex = /s+/gi;
const cityInFlorida = "Tallahassee";

cityInFlorida.match(oneOrMoreAsRegex); // ['a', 'a', 'a'];

cityInFlorida.match(oneOrMoreSsRegex); // ['ss'];

Matches characters that occur zero or more times in a

row

Use the asterisk *

const zeroOrMoreOsRegex = /hi*/gi;

const normalHi = "hi";
const happyHi = "hiiiiii";
const twoHis = "hiihii";
const bye = "bye";

normalHi.match(zeroOrMoreOsRegex); // ["hi"]
happyHi.match(zeroOrMoreOsRegex); // ["hiiiiii"]
twoHis.match(zeroOrMoreOsRegex); // ["hii", "hii"]
bye.match(zeroOrMoreOsRegex); // null

Lazy Matching

The smallest part of a string that matches the given

requirements
Regex, by default, are greedy (matches the longest
portion of a string meeting the given requirements)
Use the ? character to lazy match
const testString = "catastrophe";
const greedyRexex = /c[a-z]*t/gi;
const lazyRegex = /c[a-z]*?t/gi;

testString.match(greedyRexex); // ["catast"]
testString.match(lazyRegex); // ["cat"]

Match starting string patterns

To test for a match of characters at the beginning of a

string, use the caret ^ , but outside of the character set

const emmaAtFrontOfString = "Emma likes cats a lot.";

const emmaNotAtFrontOfString = "The cats Emma likes are fluffy.";
const startingStringRegex = /^Emma/;

startingStringRegex.test(emmaAtFrontOfString); // true
startingStringRegex.test(emmaNotAtFrontOfString); // false

Match ending string patterns

Use the dollar sign $ at the end of a regex to check

whether a pattern exists at the end of a string

const emmaAtBackOfString = "The cats do not like Emma";

const emmaNotAtBackOfString = "Emma loves the cats";
const startingStringRegex = /Emma$/;

startingStringRegex.test(emmaAtBackOfString); // true
startingStringRegex.test(emmaNotAtBackOfString); // false
Matching all letters and numbers

Use the \word shorthand

const longHand = /[A-Za-z0-9_]+/;

const shortHand = /\w+/;
const numbers = "42";
const myFavoriteColor = "magenta";

longHand.test(numbers); // true
shortHand.test(numbers); // true
longHand.test(myFavoriteColor); // true
shortHand.test(myFavoriteColor); // true

Match everything except letters & numbers

You can use for the opposite of \w with \W

const noAlphaNumericCharRegex = /\W/gi;

const weirdCharacters = "!_$!!";
const alphaNumericCharacters = "ab283AD";

noAlphaNumericCharRegex.test(weirdCharacters); // true
noAlphaNumericCharRegex.test(alphaNumericCharacters); // false

Match all numbers

You can use a character set [0-9] , or use the

shorthand \d
const digitsRegex = /\d/g;
const stringWithDigits = "My cat eats $20.00 worth of food a week.";

stringWithDigits.match(digitsRegex); // ["2", "0", "0", "0"]

Match all non-numbers

You can use the opposite of \d with \D

const nonDigitsRegex = /\D/g;

const stringWithLetters = "101 degrees";

stringWithLetters.match(nonDigitsRegex); // [" ", "d", "e", "g", "r",

Matching whitespace

Use \s to match white space and carriage returns

const sentenceWithWhitespace = "I like cats!"

var spaceRegex = /\s/g;
whiteSpace.match(sentenceWithWhitespace); // [" ", " "]

Matching non-whitespace

You can use the opposite of \s with \S

const sentenceWithWhitespace = "C a t"

const nonWhiteSpaceRegex = /\S/g;
sentenceWithWhitespace.match(nonWhiteSpaceRegex); // ["C", "a", "t"]
Matching character counts

You can specify a specific number of characters in a

row using {lowerBound, upperBound}

const regularHi = "hi";

const mediocreHi = "hiii";
const superExcitedHey = "heeeeyyyyy!!!";
const excitedRegex = /hi{1,4}/;

excitedRegex.test(regularHi); // true
excitedRegex.test(mediocreHi); // true
excitedRegex.test(superExcitedHey); //false

Matching lowest number of character counts

You can define only a minimum number of character

requirements with {lowerBound,}
This is called a quantity specifier

const regularHi = "hi";

const mediocreHi = "hiii";
const superExcitedHey = "heeeeyyyyy!!!";
const excitedRegex = /hi{2,}/;

excitedRegex.test(regularHi); // false
excitedRegex.test(mediocreHi); // true
excitedRegex.test(superExcitedHey); //false

Matching an exact number of character counts

 You can specify the exact number of character
requirements with {requiredCount}

const regularHi = "hi";

const bestHi = "hii";
const mediocreHi = "hiii";
const excitedRegex = /hi{2}/;

excitedRegex.test(regularHi); // false
excitedRegex.test(bestHi); // true
excitedRegex.test(mediocreHi); //false

Matching all or none of a character

To check whether a character exists, use the ?

const britishSpelling = "colour";

const americanSpelling = "Color";
const languageRegex = /colou?r/i;

languageRegex.test(britishSpelling); // true
languageRegex.test(americanSpelling); // true

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Emma Wedekind ✨
UX Engineer, bibliophile, & cat mom
+ FOLLOW

@emmawedekind EmmaWedekind emmawedekind www.emmawedekind.com

Add to the discussion

PREVIEW SUBMIT

Feb 19
Brian Kichler

I go cross-eyed dealing wit h regex, but t his is an excellent reference I'm definit ely coming back to.
I almost always head to regex101.com whenever pat t ern-mat ching st art s to devour my brain.

30 REPLY

 
Feb 20
Richard vK

Just shared t he link to regex101 wit h my colleagues today - great tool!

4 REPLY

 
Feb 20
Saúl Blanco Tejero

RT

1 REPLY
  Feb 19
Alex Lohr

Using t he | operator is a dangerous habit . You easily forget to guard yourself against mat ching
subst rings, for example consider t he following line:

const isLocalHost = /127.0.0.1|localhost/.test(location.host);

And now what happens on localhost.mydevious.url ? The secure solut ion is to use ^ and $ to
gat e t he st art and end of t he t est ed st ring.

Also, one t rick up JS regex's sleeve is t he back reference ( \1-\9 ):

/(["'])(.*?)\1/.test('"I can match Emma\'s full strings"') && RegExp.$2;

/(["'])(.*?)\1/.test("'I can match when Emma say \"things in strings\"'") && RegExp.$2;

This will re-use t he (matches) inside t he same regex.

15 REPLY

 
Feb 25
Chris Watson

The real guard is to writ e t est s to assert t he correct behaviour :)

3 REPLY

 
Feb 26
Alex Lohr

Just don't forget about t hose edge cases ;-)

4 REPLY

Feb 19
Nick Taylor

Todd Mot to™

 @toddmot to
Just remember, Elon Musk doesn’t know RegExp eit her.
19:45 PM - 19 Feb 2019
29 175

14 REPLY

Feb 19
Miloslav Voloskov

For me, Regex and Perl are write-only languages. I can't debug, edit or even read regex – I just
rewrit e it from scrat ch wit h some tool like RegExr or somet hing. For me, a person who can
memorise all t hat synt ax is definit ely a superhuman.

8 REPLY

 
Feb 19
Denys Séguret

Making code readable is half t he job of t he coder. It 's also t rue for regexes, which means you
have to look for ways to separat e part s and comment your regexes (or at least name t he
groups).

Fort unat ely, you can find solut ions in most languages. Here are t wo examples from some of my
OS codes:

In Javascript :

cmdArgRegex = miaou.lib("rex")`
([a-z ]*) // options (optional)
(-?\d*\s*d\s*[\d+-]+) // left rolldef (mandatory)
(?: // inequation (optional)
\s*
([<>=]+) // operator
\s*
([\w+-]+) // right rolldef or scalar
)?
\s*$
/i`;

(I t hink t here are JS libs to do t hat wit hout t aking my code, now)

In rust :
 static ref RE: Regex = Regex::new(
r"(?x)
^
(?P<slash_before>/)?
(?P<pattern>[^\s/:]+)?
(?:/(?P<regex_flags>\w*))?
(?:[\s:]+(?P<verb>\S*))?
$
"

(t his is t he st andard way in t his language)

12 REPLY

Feb 21
Sebastijan Grabar

The funny t hing about t hese Regex cheat cheet s is no mat t er how many of t hem I put in my
bookmarks, I never end up using t hem.

8 REPLY

 
Feb 26
Precious adeyinka

sebast ian 😂 me too

2 REPLY

Feb 19
George W Langham

I t end to not bot her learning regex, t he cases where it 's useful, I'll just go to a sit e like regexr.com
and t hen use t heir tools to build one.

6 REPLY

 
Feb 20
Jackson Elfers

In t hink t hat 's t he general consensus. I only use it occasionally so it 's not wort h my t ime to be
100 percent fluent .

3 REPLY
  Feb 20
Luis M Alvarez Pacheco

Anot her cheat sheet for my privat e gist collect ion lol

5 REPLY

Feb 26
mtomasek2

I'm using regex debuger, regexbuddy.com/, to debug different regex flavors. It saved me a lot of
t ime over t he years. It can also run on linux (using Wine).
They also have a tool for building regexps, regexmagic.com/, but I'm not using is so I'm just saying
it is out t here.

3 REPLY

Feb 25
Leonardo Galante

Great cheat sheet , t hank you Emma! Soon I'm gonna make a post about t his ext ension I made for
VSCode t hat could help underst anding RegExp: market place.visualst udio.com/it ems...

3 REPLY

Feb 26
Phillip Dodd

Oh my, I wish t hat I had encount ered t his post about t wo mont hs ago before I began t he difficult
journey of acquiring what (lit t le) regex knowledge I have now... haha!

I'm absolut ely going to be bookmarking t his to revisit next t ime I have t he need and will be sharing
it wit h my t eam. You've laid t his out in a very underst andable way; t hanks for sharing :)

3 REPLY

Thomas Junk ツ Feb 20

For t he day-to_day development , I recommend using Rubular or Regexly

5 REPLY
   Apr 30
Guillaume Duchemin

Thx a lot for t his awesome cheat sheet !

You made a mist ake in t his case

const regexWithLetterAndNumberRange = /[a-z0-9]/ig;

const testString = "Emma19382";
testString.match(regexWithLetterAndNumberRange) // true

The result of mat ch is // ["E", "m", "m", "a", "1", "9", "3", "8", "2"] ;)

3 REPLY

Feb 20
I'mAHopelessDev

very neat , t hanks!

4 REPLY

Feb 20
plainJavaScript

Pret t y fine.

4 REPLY

Feb 19
Mehdi Vasigh

Great post and doubles as a great pract ice assessment if you hide all of t he code blocks!

4 REPLY

Feb 20
Bartosz Maciejewicz

I <3 it :) t hank you very much :)

 4 REPLY

Feb 19
Sohail Nasir

Thanks, t his makes regex less scary! Keep up t he good work

4 REPLY

Jun 20
Phil Ashby

Nicely done :)

Always choose carefully when choosing to use a regular expression of course. Our primary
applicat ion at work is for input validat ion, drawing heavily on t he excellent work done in OWASP:
owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_ Validat i...

1 REPLY

Feb 25
mmeyers00

Shouldn't t his also go under #regex?

3 REPLY

Feb 23
Lundeee

Never ever did i wrot e single regex wit hout some kind of cheat sheet or tool. Thank you.

3 REPLY

Feb 20
Saúl Blanco Tejero

I love regexp 😊
3 REPLY
   Feb 19
monsterooo

⛄
3 REPLY

Feb 25
10secondsofcode

Nicely explained....!

2 REPLY

Feb 27
LuisPa García

Great post Emma!

2 REPLY

Feb 20
Jackson Elfers

There are definit ely some regex wizards out t here, great work put t ing t his toget her. 😁
2 REPLY

Feb 25
Shah Nawaz Shuvo

This is a great reference guide. Thank you Emma

2 REPLY

Feb 22
Jon Randy

Best regex cheat sheet I ever came across - applet ree.or.kr/quick_ reference_ ca...

2 REPLY
   Feb 21
Vinicius Dutra

t hanks for share t his useful t ips

2 REPLY

Feb 26
Tutlane

Thanks emma for t he list , will share it in our JavaScript topics.

2 REPLY

Feb 25
UniWrighte

I've most ly used .t est , but you make good use of t he .mat ch met hod. Thanks for t he great regex
post wit h a JavaScript focus!

2 REPLY

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