The regular expression: (?-imsx:(^USA|BRA|CAN)?(.*?)(XY)?$) 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 (optional (matching the most amount possible)): ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ^ the beginning of the string ---------------------------------------------------------------------- USA 'USA' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | OR ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BRA 'BRA' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | OR ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CAN 'CAN' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- )? end of \1 (NOTE: because you are using a quantifier on this capture, only the LAST repetition of the captured pattern will be stored in \1) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ( group and capture to \2: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- .*? any character except \n (0 or more times (matching the least amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ) end of \2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ( group and capture to \3 (optional (matching the most amount possible)): ---------------------------------------------------------------------- XY 'XY' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- )? end of \3 (NOTE: because you are using a quantifier on this capture, only the LAST repetition of the captured pattern will be stored in \3) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- $ before an optional \n, and the end of the string ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ) end of grouping ----------------------------------------------------------------------