Pattern

Regex for MAC address

MAC address with colon or hyphen separators.

The pattern

^([0-9A-Fa-f]{2}[:-]){5}[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}$

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What it matches

00:1A:2B:3C:4D:5E
00-1A-2B-3C-4D-5E
ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

What it doesn't match

001A2B3C4D5E
00:1A:2B:3C:4D
00:1A:2B:3C:4D:5E:6F

Notes & gotchas

Six pairs of hex digits separated by colons or hyphens. Cisco-style dotted format (0123.4567.89ab) is not matched.

Code in your language

Use the explainer's Code tab to generate ready-to-paste snippets in JavaScript, Python, Java, .NET, Go, Ruby, and PHP for this pattern.

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About this pattern

Identifying and validating user identity (names, contact info, IDs) is one of the most common reasons developers reach for regex. The pattern below handles the format check; for full validation always confirm against a source of truth (database, API, or document).

Quick usage in different languages

Once you've validated a candidate value matches this pattern, you'll typically use it inside your application code. Each language has its own regex syntax:

JavaScript: new RegExp(pattern).test(value)
Python: re.match(pattern, value) with raw strings: r"pattern"
Java: Pattern.compile(pattern).matcher(value).matches()
C# / .NET: Regex.IsMatch(value, pattern)
Go: regexp.MustCompile(pattern).MatchString(value) — Go uses RE2 so some advanced features aren't available
Ruby: value =~ /pattern/ or pattern.match?(value)
PHP: preg_match('/pattern/', $value)

The explainer's Code tab generates these for any pattern you paste — including the right escaping and idioms for each language.

Common pitfalls

Anchors matter. If the pattern uses ^ and $ it expects the entire input to match. To find this pattern inside a longer text, remove the anchors and use the /g flag.
Case sensitivity. Letter ranges like [A-Z] only match uppercase. Use the i flag or [A-Za-z] for case-insensitive matching.
Escape user input. If you're building a regex from a string variable, escape regex metacharacters first to avoid bugs or injection.
Performance. For this specific pattern the risk is low, but be cautious of nested quantifiers when adapting it — they can cause exponential backtracking on adversarial input.