It's relatively easy to spot that it's just a (?:..........)

It could just as easily be two `(?:...)` back to back. Therefore, tidying this up requires a complete regexp parser. And since Perl regex patterns can contain arbitrary Perl code, you also need a complete Perl parser if the pattern includes `(?{...})` or `(??{...})`.

So no, it's immensely hard to spot that it's just `(?:...)`.

It might be easier to address the problem at the source, which means replacing 

my $augmented_pattern = "$re";
...
my $re = qr/$augmented_pattern/;

[download]
with 
my ($pattern, $mods) = re::regexp_pattern($re);
...
my $re = eval("qr/\$pattern/$mods") or die $@;

[download]

In reply to Re: Tidying and simplifying a regular expression by ikegami
in thread Tidying and simplifying a regular expression by Dallaylaen

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