How to match, but not capture, part of a regex?

Question

I have a list of strings. Some of them are of the form 123-...456. The variable portion \"...\" may be:

• the string \"apple\" followed by a hyphen,

Answer 1

Try:

123-(?:(apple|banana|)-|)456

That will match apple, banana, or a blank string, and following it there will be a 0 or 1 hyphens. I was wrong about not having a need for a capturing group. Silly me.