>perl -MYAPE::Regex::Explain -E 'say YAPE::Regex::Explain->new(q<[\s+,:]>)->explain' The regular expression: (?-imsx:[\s+,:]) 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): ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [\s+,:] any character of: whitespace (\n, \r, \t, \f, and " "), '+', ',', ':' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ) end of grouping ----------------------------------------------------------------------