ScanSpotRegex Tester
Test regular expressions with live highlighting.
Match groups shownCommon patterns built inFlags supported
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.* Regex Tester
Test regular expressions with match highlighting and capture groups.
Quick:
Write a regular expression and watch it match against your test string in real time. Capturing groups, named groups and match positions are all listed.
How to use the Regex Tester
- Type your pattern and flags, such as
g,iorm. - Paste the text you want to test it against.
- Matching substrings are highlighted, and every capture group is listed underneath.
Why people use it
- Live highlighting makes it obvious when a pattern is greedier than you intended.
- Named groups are shown by name, which is far easier to read than numbered backreferences.
- A built-in cheat sheet covers character classes, anchors and quantifiers without a trip to the documentation.
Frequently asked questions
Which regex flavour is used?
JavaScript's, as implemented by your browser's RegExp engine. It supports lookahead, and lookbehind in current browsers, but has no recursion and no atomic groups.
Why does my pattern match more than I expect?
Quantifiers are greedy by default, so .* swallows everything up to the last possible match. Append a question mark — .*? — to make it lazy.
What does the g flag do?
It finds every match rather than stopping at the first. Without it the tester reports a single match.