The regular expression: (?-imsx:"(.*?)" "(((\")|[^"])*)") 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: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- .*? any character except \n (0 or more times (matching the least amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ) end of \1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- " " '" "' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ( group and capture to \2: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ( group and capture to \3 (0 or more times (matching the most amount possible)): ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ( group and capture to \4: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \" '"' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ) end of \4 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | OR ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [^"] any character except: '"' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- )* end of \3 (NOTE: because you're using a quantifier on this capture, only the LAST repetition of the captured pattern will be stored in \3) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ) end of \2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- " '"' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ) end of grouping ----------------------------------------------------------------------