10 Java Regular Expression Examples You Should Know
Regular expression is an art of the programing, it’s hard to debug , learn and understand, but the powerful features are still attract many developers to code regular expression. Let’s explore the following 10 practical regular expression ~ enjoy :)
1. Username Regular Expression Pattern
^[a-z0-9_-]{3,15}$
^ # Start of the line [a-z0-9_-] # Match characters and symbols in the list, a-z, 0-9 , underscore , hyphen {3,15} # Length at least 3 characters and maximum length of 15 $ # End of the line
==> See the explanation and example here
2. Password Regular Expression Pattern
((?=.*\d)(?=.*[a-z])(?=.*[A-Z])(?=.*[@#$%]).{6,20})
( # Start of group (?=.*\d) # must contains one digit from 0-9 (?=.*[a-z]) # must contains one lowercase characters (?=.*[A-Z]) # must contains one uppercase characters (?=.*[@#$%]) # must contains one special symbols in the list "@#$%" . # match anything with previous condition checking {6,20} # length at least 6 characters and maximum of 20 ) # End of group
==> See the explanation and example here
3. Hexadecimal Color Code Regular Expression Pattern
^#([A-Fa-f0-9]{6}|[A-Fa-f0-9]{3})$
^ #start of the line # # must constains a "#" symbols ( # start of group #1 [A-Fa-f0-9]{6} # any strings in the list, with length of 6 | # ..or [A-Fa-f0-9]{3} # any strings in the list, with length of 3 ) # end of group #1 $ #end of the line
==> See the explanation and example here
4. Email Regular Expression Pattern
^[_A-Za-z0-9-]+(\\.[_A-Za-z0-9-]+)*@[A-Za-z0-9]+ (\\.[A-Za-z0-9]+)*(\\.[A-Za-z]{2,})$
^ #start of the line [_A-Za-z0-9-]+ # must start with string in the bracket [ ], must contains one or more (+) ( # start of group #1 \\.[_A-Za-z0-9-]+ # follow by a dot "." and string in the bracket [ ], must contains one or more (+) )* # end of group #1, this group is optional (*) @ # must contains a "@" symbol [A-Za-z0-9]+ # follow by string in the bracket [ ], must contains one or more (+) ( # start of group #2 - first level TLD checking \\.[A-Za-z0-9]+ # follow by a dot "." and string in the bracket [ ], must contains one or more (+) )* # end of group #2, this group is optional (*) ( # start of group #3 - second level TLD checking \\.[A-Za-z]{2,} # follow by a dot "." and string in the bracket [ ], with minimum length of 2 ) # end of group #3 $ #end of the line
==> See the explanation and example here
5. Image File Extension Regular Expression Pattern
([^\s]+(\.(?i)(jpg|png|gif|bmp))$)
( #Start of the group #1 [^\s]+ # must contains one or more anything (except white space) ( # start of the group #2 \. # follow by a dot "." (?i) # ignore the case sensitive checking ( # start of the group #3 jpg # contains characters "jpg" | # ..or png # contains characters "png" | # ..or gif # contains characters "gif" | # ..or bmp # contains characters "bmp" ) # end of the group #3 ) # end of the group #2 $ # end of the string ) #end of the group #1
==> See the explanation and example here
6. IP Address Regular Expression Pattern
^([01]?\\d\\d?|2[0-4]\\d|25[0-5])\\.([01]?\\d\\d?|2[0-4]\\d|25[0-5])\\. ([01]?\\d\\d?|2[0-4]\\d|25[0-5])\\.([01]?\\d\\d?|2[0-4]\\d|25[0-5])$
^ #start of the line ( # start of group #1 [01]?\\d\\d? # Can be one or two digits. If three digits appear, it must start either 0 or 1 # e.g ([0-9], [0-9][0-9],[0-1][0-9][0-9]) | # ...or 2[0-4]\\d # start with 2, follow by 0-4 and end with any digit (2[0-4][0-9]) | # ...or 25[0-5] # start with 2, follow by 5 and end with 0-5 (25[0-5]) ) # end of group #2 \. # follow by a dot "." .... # repeat with 3 time (3x) $ #end of the line
==> See the explanation and example here
7. Time Format Regular Expression Pattern
Time in 12-Hour Format Regular Expression Pattern
(1[012]|[1-9]):[0-5][0-9](\\s)?(?i)(am|pm)
( #start of group #1 1[012] # start with 10, 11, 12 | # or [1-9] # start with 1,2,...9 ) #end of group #1 : # follow by a semi colon (:) [0-5][0-9] # follow by 0..5 and 0..9, which means 00 to 59 (\\s)? # follow by a white space (optional) (?i) # next checking is case insensitive (am|pm) # follow by am or pm
==> See the explanation and example here
Time in 24-Hour Format Regular Expression Pattern
([01]?[0-9]|2[0-3]):[0-5][0-9]
( #start of group #1 [01]?[0-9] # start with 0-9,1-9,00-09,10-19 | # or 2[0-3] # start with 20-23 ) #end of group #1 : # follow by a semi colon (:) [0-5][0-9] # follow by 0..5 and 0..9, which means 00 to 59
==> See the explanation and example here
8. Date Format (dd/mm/yyyy) Regular Expression Pattern
(0?[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])/(0?[1-9]|1[012])/((19|20)\\d\\d)
( #start of group #1 0?[1-9] # 01-09 or 1-9 | # ..or [12][0-9] # 10-19 or 20-29 | # ..or 3[01] # 30, 31 ) #end of group #1 / # follow by a "/" ( # start of group #2 0?[1-9] # 01-09 or 1-9 | # ..or 1[012] # 10,11,12 ) # end of group #2 / # follow by a "/" ( # start of group #3 (19|20)\\d\\d # 19[0-9][0-9] or 20[0-9][0-9] ) # end of group #3
==> See the explanation and example here
9. HTML tag Regular Expression Pattern
<("[^"]*"|'[^']*'|[^'">])*>
< #start with opening tag "<" ( # start of group #1 "[^"]*" # only two double quotes are allow - "string" | # ..or '[^']*' # only two single quotes are allow - 'string' | # ..or [^'">] # cant contains one single quotes, double quotes and ">" ) # end of group #1 * # 0 or more > #end with closing tag ">"
==> See the explanation and example here
10. HTML links Regular Expression Pattern
HTML A tag Regular Expression Pattern
(?i)<a([^>]+)>(.+?)</a>
( #start of group #1 ?i # all checking are case insensive ) #end of group #1 <a #start with "<a" ( # start of group #2 [^>]+ # anything except (">"), at least one character ) # end of group #2 > # follow by ">" (.+?) # match anything </a> # end with "</a>
Extract HTML link Regular Expression Pattern
\s*(?i)href\s*=\s*(\"([^"]*\")|'[^']*'|([^'">\s]+));
\s* #can start with whitespace (?i) # all checking are case insensive href # follow by "href" word \s*=\s* # allows spaces on either side of the equal sign, ( # start of group #1 "([^"]*") # only two double quotes are allow - "string" | # ..or '[^']*' # only two single quotes are allow - 'string' | # ..or ([^'">]+) # cant contains one single / double quotes and ">" ) # end of group #1
==> See the explanation and example here

The reg ex about date format, doesn’t seem to be correct, it accepts 4 digits dates straight away if you run that in Jdk 1.6 ( I am not sure about other versions of JDK). Please check.
String myDate = “3106/12/2099″;
String regEx = “(0?[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])/(0?[1-9]|1[012])/((19|20)\\d\\d)”;
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regEx);
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(myDate);
boolean result = matcher.find();
System.out.println(“Result = “+result);
output: Result = true (surprising)
Regards
Rahul A. Bhujbal.
It was very helpful.Thanks a lot
I want to know regular expression for various symbols used in doc file list. like bullet sign, star and ……………..
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FYI you refer to the “:” character as a “semi colon” — this is incorrect and confusing. The “:” character is a “colon” and this character “;” is a “semicolon” (one word) although writing it as “semi colon” is a lot easier to read.
Great Tutorial!!
if I want to allow blank spaces in my charset for “name”, how can I do that?
Will this work?
String strPattern = “^[a-zA-Z](\\w*)(_*)(-*)(\\u0020*)”;
Thanks in advance..
ya good sir we r thankful to u..
Great examples. Thanks.
But what is the difference between \\d (as in #6) and \d (as in #2)? Where do you use which? I was using \d in a Hive query and it didn’t work but \\d seems to work.
Thanks again for a great refresher on regex.
Matt
Useful with good explanation.Thank u
Very good!!! Useful link
Awesome examples..very helpful..keep on posting :)
Very good & useful. I love your website. Lots of good stuff!!
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keep posting like this..
useful!!! thanks!
Glad to see this article and thank you for that. It is good to see that there is detailed explanation of regex types.