⛳ RegEx Golf

Write the shortest regular expression to match — and avoid — the right words!

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Star Wars vs Star Trek

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✅MATCH THESE

❌AVOID THESE

Your regex: 0 chars Best: —

/ /

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📖 Regex Cheat Sheet ▲

Symbol	What it does	Example
Characters
.	Any single character	b.t → "bat", "bit"
\d	Any digit 0–9	A\d → "A1", "A9"
\w	Word char (a–z, A–Z, 0–9, _)	\w+ → "hello"
\s	Whitespace (space, tab)	a\sb → "a b"
\D	Any NON-digit (not 0–9)	\D+ → "abc", "?!", not "123"
\W	Any NON-word char (not a–z, A–Z, 0–9, _)	\W → "!", " ", "-"
\S	Any NON-whitespace	\S+ → "Hello!", not " "
Anchors
^	Start of string	^Cat → "Cat", not "sCat"
$	End of string	end$ → "end", not "ending"
Boundaries
\b	Word boundary (edge of a word)	\bcat\b → "cat", not "catfish"
\B	NOT a word boundary	\Bcat → "tomcat", not "cat"
Quantifiers
*	0 or more of previous	go* → "g", "go", "goo"
+	1 or more of previous	go+ → "go", "goo"
?	0 or 1 — makes it optional	colou?r → "color", "colour"
{n}	Exactly n times	a{3} → "aaa"
{n,m}	Between n and m times	a{2,4} → "aa"–"aaaa"
{n,}	At least n times	a{2,} → "aa", "aaa"...
Character Classes
[abc]	Any one of a, b, or c	[cbr]at → "cat", "bat"
[a-z]	Any character in range	[A-Z]\w+ → "Hello"
[^abc]	Any character NOT listed (here ^ at the start means “not”)	[^aeiou] → consonants
Groups & Alternation
(ab)	Group — treat as a unit	(go)+ → "go", "gogo"
a\|b	a OR b — either matches	cat\|dog → "cat" or "dog"
(?:ab)	Non-capturing group (group without saving)	^(?:Cat\|Dog)$
Escaping
\.	Literal dot (not wildcard)	3\.14 → "3.14" only
\(	Literal parenthesis	\(hi\) → "(hi)"

💡 Tips: Shorter regex = lower score · You only need to match part of a word · Matching is case-sensitive · Use | for OR

🏆 Most Recent High Scores — Top 3 ▲

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