The regular expression: (?-imsx:((.*)EDITION/|Edition/)(.*)) matches as follows: NODE EXPLANATION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- (?-imsx: group, but do not capture (case-sensitive) (with ^ and $ matching normally) (with . not matching \n) (matching whitespace and # normally): ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ( group and capture to \1: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ( group and capture to \2: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- .* any character except \n (0 or more times (matching the most amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ) end of \2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EDITION/ 'EDITION/' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | OR ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Edition/ 'Edition/' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ) end of \1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ( group and capture to \3: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- .* any character except \n (0 or more times (matching the most amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ) end of \3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ) end of grouping ----------------------------------------------------------------------