Regular expression examples

The following table shows example uses of regular expressions. Some examples work with both SIMILAR TO and REGEXP, and some work only with REGEXP. Also, some return different results depending on the case-sensitivity of the database.

In examples, backslashes should be doubled if used in literal strings (for example, '.+@.+\\..+')

Example Sample matches
Credit Card Numbers:

Visa:

4[0-9]{3}\s[0-9]{4}\s[0-9]{4}\s[0-9]{4}

MasterCard:

5[0-9]{3}\s[0-9]{4}\s[0-9]{4}\s[0-9]{4}

American Express:

37[0-9]{2}\s[0-9]{4}\s[0-9]{4}\s[0-9]{4}

Discover:

6011\s[0-9]{4}\s[0-9]{4}\s[0-9]{4}

Matches (Visa): 4123 6453 2222 1746

Non-Matches (Visa):

3124 5675 4400 4567, 4123-6453-2222-1746

Similarly, MasterCard matches a set of 16 numbers, starting with 5, with a space between each subset of four numbers. American Express and Discover are the same, but must start with 37 and 6011 respectively.

Dates:

([0-2][0-9]|30|31)/(0[1-9]|1[0-2])/[0-9]{4}

Matches: 31/04/1999, 15/12/4567

Non-Matches: 31/4/1999, 31/4/99, 1999/04/19, 42/67/25456
Windows absolute paths:

[:alpha:]\\[[:graph:][:space:]^:*?"<>|]*

Matches: c:\directory1\directory2

Non-Matches: \directory\directory2, /directory2
Email Addresses:

[[:word:]\-.]+@[[:word:]\-.]+\.[[:alpha:]]{2,3}

Matches: abc.123@def456.com, _123@abc.ca

Non-Matches: abc@dummy, ab*cd@efg.hijkl
Email Addresses:

.+@.+\..+

Matches: *@qrstuv@wxyz.12345.com, __1234^%@@abc.def.ghijkl

Non-Matches: abc.123.*&ca, ^%abcdefg123
HTML Hexadecimal Color Codes:

[A-F0-9]{6}

Matches: AB1234, CCCCCC, 12AF3B

Non-Matches: 123G45, 12-44-CC
HTML Hexadecimal Color Codes:

[A-F0-9]{2}\s[A-F0-9]{2}\s[A-F0-9]{2}

Matches: AB 11 00, CC 12 D3

Non-Matches: SS AB CD, AA BB CC DD, 1223AB
IP Addresses:

(2(5[0-5]|[0-4][0-9])|1([0-9][0-9])|([1-9][0-9])|[0-9])\.){3}(2(5[0-5]|[0-4][0-9])|1([0-9][0-9])|([1-9][0-9])|[0-9])

Matches: 10.25.101.216

Non-Matches: 0.0.0, 256.89.457.02
Java Comments:

/\*%\*/|//[^\n]*

Matches Java comments that are between /* and */, or one line comments prefaced by //.

Non-Matches: a=1
Money:

(\+|-)?\$[0-9]*\.[0-9]{2}

Matches: $1.00, -$97.65

Non-Matches: $1, 1.00$, $-75.17
Numbers (positive, negative, decimal values):

(\+|-)?[0-9]+(\.[0-9]+)?

Matches: +41, -412, 2, 7968412, 41, +41.1, -3.141592653

Non-Matches: ++41, 41.1.19, -+97.14
Passwords:

[[:alnum:]]{4,10}

Matches: abcd, 1234, A1b2C3d4, 1a2B3

Non-Matches: abc, *ab12, abcdefghijkl
Passwords:

[a-zA-Z]\w{3,7}

Matches: AB_cd, A1_b2c3, a123_

Non-Matches: *&^g, abc, 1bcd

Phone Numbers:

([2-9][0-9]{2}-[2-9][0-9]{2}-[0-9]{4})|([2-9][0-9]{2}\s[2-9][0-9]{2}\s[0-9]{4})

Matches: 519-883-6898, 519 888 6898

Non-Matches: 888 6898, 5198886898, 519 883-6898
Sentences:

[A-Z0-9].*(\.|\?|!)

Matches: Hello, how are you?

Non-Matches: i am fine
Sentences:

[[:upper:]0-9]%[.?!]

Matches: Hello, how are you?

Non-Matches: i am fine
Social Security Numbers:

[0-9]{3}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{4}

Matches: 123-45-6789

Non-Matches:123 45 6789, 123456789, 1234-56-7891
URLs:

(http://)?www\.[a-zA-Z0-9]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,3}

Matches: http://www.sample.com, www.sample.com

Non-Matches: http://sample.com, http://www.sample.comm
See also
Copyright © 2008, iAnywhere Solutions, Inc. - SQL Anywhere 11.0.0