Why does the generated regex include ^ and $ symbols?

The ^ and $ are start and end of line/string anchors respectively. Including these in your regex pattern will mean that the pattern will match only if it aligns exactly with the start and end of your input string. If your goal is to find a match anywhere in the input string, you can remove these symbols from the generated regex pattern.

How can I test the generated regex patterns?

You can use regex testing platforms such as regex101.com to verify and test the regex patterns generated by this tool.

What are regex groups and how do I use them?

Regex groups are parts of a regex pattern enclosed in parentheses. They allow you to apply regex operators to the entire grouped section. Additionally, groups capture the text matched, allowing you to extract and use submatches in your pattern.

How do I match special characters literally?

To match special characters literally, you have to escape them using a backslash (\) before the character. For example, to match a period (.) literally, you would write it as \. in your regex pattern, since the period is a special character that matches any single character.

Can I specify a range of characters to match?

Yes, you can specify a range of characters to match using square brackets []. For instance, [a-z] will match any lowercase letter, and [0-9] will match any digit. You can combine ranges and individual characters; for example, [a-zA-Z0-9] will match any alphanumeric character.

What does the question mark (?) mean in regex?

The question mark is a quantifier that makes the preceding element optional. It matches zero or one occurrence of the preceding element. For example, "colou?r" would match both "color" and "colour".