Regular expression containing one word or another

Question

I need to create an expression matching a whole number followed by either \"seconds\" or \"\"minutes\"

I tried this expression: ([0-9]+)\\s+(\\bseconds\\b)|(\\

Answer 1

You just missed an extra pair of brackets for the "OR" symbol. The following should do the trick:

([0-9]+)\s+((\bseconds\b)|(\bminutes\b))

Without those you were either matching a number followed by seconds OR just the word minutes

Answer 2

You can use a single group for seconds/minutes. The following expression may suit your needs:

([0-9]+)\s*(seconds|minutes)

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