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Asked: 2026-05-27T06:00:49+00:00

I have a long RegEx that is working, but I have a section at

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I have a long RegEx that is working, but I have a section at the end that is perplexing me. I have a scenario where I am parsing some HTML and one of two scenarios can happen. Either the pattern I am searching for ends with a X followed immediately by a single digit or it’s a  . Here’s the RegEx fragment:

(X(\d+)| )

As you might have noticed, I don’t care about the X or the  , I just want to capture the digit if it’s there. It appears that in order to use the |, I have to use a capture group. So now I get BOTH X5 AND 5 if that pattern exists. I really just want the digit captured if it’s there.

Thanks!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    To get the effect of grouping, without the effect of capturing, use the (?:...) notation:

    (?:X(\d+)| )

    This is equivalent to what you wrote, except that it doesn’t create a capture group for X5, only for 5.

    (By the way, you say “a single digit”, but your regex has \d+ rather than \d, so it can actually match multiple digits.)

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