Why are you doing /[\s\d\w]+?/? Just use /.+?/. Dan Joe Peck wrote: > Hey, I've got some text in @x and want there to be at least 1 and at > most 3 [joe][/joe] pairs, each having at least one character between the > beginning [joe] and the ending [/joe]. > > This is what I have now, and it seems to sometimes work, and sometimes > not. > > @x.match(/(\[joe\][\s\d\w]+?\[\/joe\]){1,3}/) >