Regex: How to capture optional group in middle of text?

Question

I\'m struggling with using regex to capture some optional text - it\'s in the middle of some filenames, but not all. The big problem appears to be that my optional group is not

Answer 1

Try putting the .*?(foo) parts in parentheses like (.*?(foo)) so that the ? operator will take the .*? parts into consideration.

Corrected syntax (.*?).\(?(\d{4})(.*?(color))?.*?(shape)(.*?(color))?(.*?(version))?.* (example)

Answer 2

I'm not particularly familiar with the format you are trying to use, but I believe I came up with an example of something that tackles the problem you have.

http://regexr.com/3cs8g

/name ((\([0-9]+\))|([0-9]+)) ((color shape)|(shape( color)?))( version)?/ig

What your describing is an optional clause that can appear in one of two spots. So, you make an or statement to test for each possible spot.