C:\>perl -MYAPE::Regex::Explain -e "print YAPE::Regex::Explain->new( '^[a-z]{3,10}\s*(?:\w{3,7}?\:\/\/[\w\-\.\/]*)??\/[\w\-\.\/~%@&=+$,;]*(?:\?[\S]*)??\s*http\/\d\.\d$')->explain" The regular expression: (?-imsx:^[a-z]{3,10}\s*(?:\w{3,7}?\:\/\/[\w\-\.\/]*)??\/[\w\-\.\/~%@&=+$,;]*(?:\?[\S]*)??\s*http\/\d\.\d$) 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): ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ^ the beginning of the string ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [a-z]{3,10} any character of: 'a' to 'z' (between 3 and 10 times (matching the most amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \s* whitespace (\n, \r, \t, \f, and " ") (0 or more times (matching the most amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- (?: group, but do not capture (optional (matching the least amount possible)): ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \w{3,7}? word characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9, _) (between 3 and 7 times (matching the least amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \: ':' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \/ '/' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \/ '/' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [\w\-\.\/]* any character of: word characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9, _), '\-', '\.', '\/' (0 or more times (matching the most amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- )?? end of grouping ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \/ '/' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [\w\-\.\/~%@&=+$,;]* any character of: word characters (a-z, A- Z, 0-9, _), '\-', '\.', '\/', '~', '%', '@', '&', '=', '+', '$', ',', ';' (0 or more times (matching the most amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- (?: group, but do not capture (optional (matching the least amount possible)): ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \? '?' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [\S]* any character of: non-whitespace (all but \n, \r, \t, \f, and " ") (0 or more times (matching the most amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- )?? end of grouping ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \s* whitespace (\n, \r, \t, \f, and " ") (0 or more times (matching the most amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- http 'http' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \/ '/' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \d digits (0-9) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \. '.' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \d digits (0-9) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- $ before an optional \n, and the end of the string ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ) end of grouping ----------------------------------------------------------------------