title: What are ^.* and .*$ in regular expressions?
body: <p>Can someone explain the meaning of these characters. I've looked them up but I don't seem to get it.</p>
  
  <p>The whole regular expression is:</p>
  
  <pre><code>/^.*(?=.{8,})(?=.*[a-z])(?=.*[A-Z])(?=.*[@#$%^&amp;+=]).*$/
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>So basicly the start of the regex and the end characters.</p>