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Common Regex Redirects

By: Simon
Updated:
Aug 10, 2014
Posted: Aug 10, 2014

Add this to your web design tool box. This is a must have a for bootstrap web designers.

  • ^ – Match only if the Following is at the Beginning of the Line
  • $ – Match only if the Previous is at the End of the Line
  • ? – Match the Previous 0 or 1 times (makes it optional)
  • . – Match any Single Character
  • * – Match the Previous 0 or More Times
  • + – Match the Previous 1 or More Times
  • (x) – Matches x and Remembers the match to be called using $1
  • (?:x) – Matches x but does Not remember the match
  • x(?=y) – Matches x Only if it is followed by y
  • x(?!y) – Matches x only if it is NOT followed by y
  • x|y – Matches x or y
  • [xyz] – Matches any character enclosed in the Brackets. Note: This matches X, or Y, or Z; it doesn’t match the string “xyz”.
  • [^xyz] – Matches any character Except for those listed in the Brackets.
  • \ – “Escape” special characters. Thus \? literally matches ? not the Syntax Rule of “previous is option”.
  • \d \w \s – Matches and Digit (number), Alphabetic Character (letter) or White Space (space bar) respectfully.
  • \D \W \S – Matches everything But a Digit, Character, or White Space respectfully.

Examples:

Purpose

Example formatting

Include an entire directory but nothing beneath it

http://www.yourdomain.com/shop/

^/shop/[^/]*$ **

Include all subdirectories

http://www.yourdomain.com/shop/*

^/shop/.*

Include a single file

http://www.yourdomain.com/shop.php

^/shop\.php

Include any file of a specific type

^/shop/.*\.php – any php file

Include everything that contains a specific phrase

http://www.yourdomain.com/*shop*

^/shop

Simon Urbina

Simon Urbina

Simon is a Product Designer and Front End Dev with over 20 years of experience. He started as a graphic designer and illustrator coding his first website in 1996. He has worked with brands like Publix, Microsoft, and Discovery Channel.