It's not clear to me what you are trying to achieve with your regex.

The simple grouping that look like this

aol\s*\w+|aachen\s*\w+|aaliyah\s*\w+|.....

runs quickly, it's only the one with lots of capture groups that is slow. i.e

(aol)\s*\w+|(aachen)\s*\w+|(aaliyah)\s*\w+|....

So maybe there's just a better way to get the result you want, if you'd care to explain what that is?

In reply to Re: alternation in regexes: to use or to avoid? by RichardK
in thread alternation in regexes: to use or to avoid? by dk

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