Explain a Regular Expression
Paste a regex and get a plain-English breakdown of what it matches. Free, no signup required.
Rewritten
This matches an international phone number in E.164-like form. Breaking it down: `^` anchors to the start; `\+?` allows an optional leading plus sign; `[1-9]` requires the first digit to be 1–9 (no leading zero); `\d{7,14}` requires 7 to 14 more digits; and `$` anchors to the end. So it accepts 8–15 total digits, optionally prefixed with `+`.
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About this tool
Regular expressions are famously write-once, read-never — a pattern that made perfect sense when you wrote it becomes a cryptic string of symbols a week later. This tool breaks a regex down into plain English, explaining what it matches and what each part contributes. It's built for the moment you find an unexplained pattern in a codebase or a config file and need to know exactly what it captures before you touch it, without mentally single-stepping through the syntax yourself.
Frequently asked questions
Does it handle complex patterns with lookaheads?
Yes — it explains advanced constructs like lookaheads, lookbehinds, backreferences, and non-capturing groups, not just basic character classes.
Will it tell me if my regex has a bug?
It describes what the pattern actually matches, which often reveals a mismatch with your intent — but it explains rather than debugs.
Does regex flavor matter?
Some syntax differs between flavors (PCRE, JavaScript, etc.). Mention the flavor if you're using anything unusual for the most accurate explanation.