Honestly I would't use regex for this. I would write a script that parses the file line by line and check if a line starts with a timestamp. Then use a smaller simpler regex to extract the timestamps and you can parse the next few lines that contain the text in total until you encounter a new timestamp or number block. More on reddit.com

That sort of reminds me of applicative parser combinators, although less composable. There are few parser combinator libraries for PHP but they aim for fully monadic parsers, which will probably never reach the performance of an optimized regular expression engine. I wonder if we could make a library with nice composable interface that would build a single regular expression in the background (imagining something like Nikita Popov’s FastRoute ), followed by a thin hydration layer. For example how this can be achieved in other languages, in Haskell, I can define a data structure and then “regular expression objects” (RE parsers) that will produce the final datastructure with the help of smaller parsers: import Text.Regex.Applicative data TinWoodman = TinWoodman { head :: String, arms :: String, legs :: String, body :: String, heart :: Maybe String } deriving (Show) anyStringRegex :: RE Char String anyStringRegex = many anySym tinWoodmanRegex :: RE Char TinWoodman tinWoodmanRegex = TinWoodman <$> (anyStringRegex *> string "head") <*> (anyStringRegex *> string "arms") <*> (anyStringRegex *> string "legs") <*> (anyStringRegex *> string "body") <*> (optional (anyStringRegex *> string "heart")) <* anyStringRegex In the example above, something like the following happens: string function creates a “regex object” that accepts the string given to it and also returns it as the result. anyStringRegex is .*. <*> and <$> help to pass the results of parser on the right hand side to the TinWoodman constructor function. optional function takes a parser and returns a new parser that will return the result of the inner parser wrapped in Just, or Nothing if the inner parser does not match. *> runs the parser on the left hand side, discards its result, and then runs the parser on the right and returns its result. The parser can be executed as follows: ghci> match tinWoodmanRegex "One of the big trees had been partly chopped through, and standing beside it, with an uplifted axe in his hands, was a man made entirely of tin. His head and arms and legs were jointed upon his body, but he stood perfectly motionless, as if he could not stir at all." Just (TinWoodman {head = "head", arms = "arms", legs = "legs", body = "body", heart = Nothing}) More on reddit.com

Click on the Code Generator button https://regex101.com/r/8xZ0a5/1/codegen?language=php The issue is the number of backslashes in your pattern. Because it's quoted (a "string") you need \\ to match a single \ - so you need 4 in your pattern not 2. More on reddit.com

I was ready to recommend Regexr over this, the explanation panels are actually really cool and useful. More on reddit.com