.
Any character except new line
a
the character a
ab
the string ab
a|b
a or b
a*
0 or more a’s
\
escapes a special character
*
0 or more
+
1 or more
?
0 or 1
{2}
exactly 2
{2,5}
between 2 and 5
{2,}
2 or more
[ab-d]
one character of: a, b, c, d
[^ab-d]
one character except: a, b, c, d
[\b]
backspace character
\d
one digit
\D
one non-digit
\s
one whitespace
\S
one non-whitespace
\w
one word character
\W
one non-word character
start of string
$
end of string
i
ignore case