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Regular expressions, also known as RegEx (short for regular expression), are patterns frequently used to describe character string patterns. Their main function is to extract information from a given text. For example, the pattern #^[a-zA-Z-]+@[a-zA-Z-]+.[a-zA-Z]{2,6}$# can be used to identify all email addresses present in a text or form field. Similarly, the expression [a-z0-9] matches the lowercase letters from a to z or the digits from 0 to 9. Common tools for manipulating regular expressions include AutoRegex, RegExOne, Regexr, Regulex, and Ihateregex.io.

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