lol...Sorry about that. You're correct. What I'm trying to accomplish is a two level structure one being the parent in this case: "abc" and all it's asscoiated children below: "abc1", and "abc12"

I guess the best way to explain it is that the parent should be the shortest sub-string in the match and all it's children should contain that shortest sub-string.

I hope that helps, and I wish you did have my mind reading helmet there :)
Thanks!