Regex Pattern Explainer
Paste a regular expression and see what each part means in plain English. Test it live against your own text with matches highlighted, toggle flags, and inspect captured groups.
Your pattern
Flags
Sample patterns
Token by token explanation
Test results
Matches found: 0
Highlighted matches
Group captures
No matches, so no group captures.
How to use
- Type your regular expression in the pattern box, without surrounding slashes.
- Toggle the flags you want: g, i, m, s and u.
- Add your test text, then press Explain and test.
- Read the plain English breakdown, check highlighted matches, and inspect group captures.
- If the pattern is invalid, a friendly message shows the exact engine error.
Frequently asked questions
It breaks your regular expression into tokens and explains each one in plain English, then tests the pattern against your sample text with highlighted matches.
You get a friendly error message that includes the exact JavaScript engine error, so you can see what is wrong with the pattern.
You can toggle g (global), i (case-insensitive), m (multiline), s (dot matches newlines) and u (unicode) and rerun the test instantly.
Yes, it is completely free, needs no signup, and everything runs in your browser so your patterns never leave your device.