IP address regex Java
The regular expressions below can be used to validate if a string is a valid IP address format and to extract an IP address from a string. Please note that this validation can not tell if an IP address actually exists.
IPv4 (192.168.0.1) regex
A simple regular expression to validate string against a valid IPv4 format:
Pattern.compile("^(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\\.(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\\.(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\\.(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)$")
Enter a text in the input above to see the result
Example code in Java:
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
import java.util.regex.MatchResult;
import java.util.Arrays;
public class Main {
public static void main(String []args) {
// Validate if a string is an IPv4 address
boolean isMatch = Pattern.compile("^(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\\.(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\\.(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\\.(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)$")
.matcher("192.168.0.1")
.find();
System.out.println(isMatch); // prints true
// Extract IPv4 addresses from a string
String[] matches = Pattern.compile("(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\\.(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\\.(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\\.(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)")
.matcher("My server IP addresses are 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.2")
.results()
.map(MatchResult::group)
.toArray(String[]::new);
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(matches)); // prints [192.168.0.1, 192.168.0.2]
}
}
IPv6 regex
The IPv6 regular expression can be used to match IPv6 string or to extract IPv6 from a given string:
Pattern.compile("^(([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){7,7}[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}|([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){1,7}:|([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){1,6}:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}|([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){1,5}(:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}){1,2}|([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){1,4}(:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}){1,3}|([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){1,3}(:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}){1,4}|([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){1,2}(:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}){1,5}|[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:((:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}){1,6})|:((:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}){1,7}|:)|fe80:(:[0-9a-fA-F]{0,4}){0,4}%[0-9a-zA-Z]{1,}|::(ffff(:0{1,4}){0,1}:){0,1}((25[0-5]|(2[0-4]|1{0,1}[0-9]){0,1}[0-9])\\.){3,3}(25[0-5]|(2[0-4]|1{0,1}[0-9]){0,1}[0-9])|([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){1,4}:((25[0-5]|(2[0-4]|1{0,1}[0-9]){0,1}[0-9])\\.){3,3}(25[0-5]|(2[0-4]|1{0,1}[0-9]){0,1}[0-9]))$")
Enter a text in the input above to see the result
Example code in Java:
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
public class Main {
public static void main(String []args) {
// Validate if a string is an ipv6 address
Pattern validateEmailPattern = Pattern.compile("^(([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){7,7}[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}|([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){1,7}:|([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){1,6}:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}|([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){1,5}(:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}){1,2}|([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){1,4}(:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}){1,3}|([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){1,3}(:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}){1,4}|([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){1,2}(:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}){1,5}|[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:((:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}){1,6})|:((:[0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}){1,7}|:)|fe80:(:[0-9a-fA-F]{0,4}){0,4}%[0-9a-zA-Z]{1,}|::(ffff(:0{1,4}){0,1}:){0,1}((25[0-5]|(2[0-4]|1{0,1}[0-9]){0,1}[0-9])\\.){3,3}(25[0-5]|(2[0-4]|1{0,1}[0-9]){0,1}[0-9])|([0-9a-fA-F]{1,4}:){1,4}:((25[0-5]|(2[0-4]|1{0,1}[0-9]){0,1}[0-9])\\.){3,3}(25[0-5]|(2[0-4]|1{0,1}[0-9]){0,1}[0-9]))$");
System.out.println(validateEmailPattern.matcher("1:2:3:4:5:6:7:8").find()); // prints true
}
}
Notes on IPv4 and IPv6 address validation
While validation of IP addresses using regex can give a possibility to check their format, it does not guarantee you that those addresses actually exist. You might need to do additional actions to verify that.
