The regular expression: (?-imsx:[Calle[-\s]/) matches as follows: NODE EXPLANATION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- (?-imsx: group, but do not capture (case-sensitive) (with ^ and $ matching normally) (with . not matching \n) (matching whitespace and # normally): ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [Calle[-\s] any character of: 'C', 'a', 'l', 'l', 'e', '[''-', whitespace (\n, \r, \t, \f, and " ") ---------------------------------------------------------------------- / '/' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ) end of grouping ----------------------------------------------------------------------