The regular expression: (?-imsx:\A\d+\.\d+-\d+\.\d+\s+\d+\s+\d+\z) 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): ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \A the beginning of the string ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \d+ digits (0-9) (1 or more times (matching the most amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \. '.' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \d+ digits (0-9) (1 or more times (matching the most amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - '-' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \d+ digits (0-9) (1 or more times (matching the most amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \. '.' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \d+ digits (0-9) (1 or more times (matching the most amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \s+ whitespace (\n, \r, \t, \f, and " ") (1 or more times (matching the most amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \d+ digits (0-9) (1 or more times (matching the most amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \s+ whitespace (\n, \r, \t, \f, and " ") (1 or more times (matching the most amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \d+ digits (0-9) (1 or more times (matching the most amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \z the end of the string ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ) end of grouping ----------------------------------------------------------------------