Question

Having the following regular expression:

([a-z])([0-9])\1

It matches a5a, is there any way for it to also match a5b, a5c, a5d and so on?

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EDIT: Okay, I understand that I could just use ([a-z])([0-9])([a-z]) but I’ve a very long and complicated regular expression (matching sub-sub-sub-…-domains or matching an IPv4 address) that would really benefit from the behavior described above. Is that somehow possible to achieve with backreferences or anything else?

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Anon. answer is what I need, but it seems to be erroneous.

Answer 1

You don’t need back references if the second letter is independent of the first, right?

([a-z])([0-9])([a-z])+

EDIT

If you just don’t want to repeat the last part over and over again, then:

([a-z])([0-9])([a-z])

Just taking away the ‘+’.