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Regex Cheat Sheet/Absolute start anchor

Match only at the absolute start of the entire string.

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Section: Anchors and Boundaries

Absolute start anchor

regex
regex
\A
Explanation

Common in PCRE, Ruby, and Python-style engines; safer than `^` when multiline mode is enabled.

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Absolute end anchor
Match only at the absolute end of the entire string.
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Match only at the beginning of the input.
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Match only at the end of the input.
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Non-word boundary
Match where a word boundary does not occur.
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Treat a whole block as literal text.
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