Perhaps what you really want is something on the order of YAPE::Regex::Explain.
The regular expression:
(?-imsx:(.*)test(.*))
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):
----------------------------------------------------------------------
( group and capture to \1:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
.* any character except \n (0 or more times
(matching the most amount possible))
----------------------------------------------------------------------
) end of \1
----------------------------------------------------------------------
test 'test'
----------------------------------------------------------------------
( group and capture to \2:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
.* any character except \n (0 or more times
(matching the most amount possible))
----------------------------------------------------------------------
) end of \2
----------------------------------------------------------------------
) end of grouping
----------------------------------------------------------------------
