Capturing optional groups in regex

Question

I need to capture the optional texts in a pattern, with the extracted examples i, 9, Caffè and you in the following matched scenarios:

• Valid matches:

  love!
  9 love!
  love Caffè!
  i love you!
  

• Invalid matches:

  love
  iloveyou
  

My rule: [*] love [*]!, with [*] meaning blank text can be accepted to be captured.

I tried to make the regex ((?:.+) )?love( (?:.+))?! (online) but it failed to capture the correct texts.

Answer 1

You may swap your capturing with non-capturing groups:

(?:(.+) )?love(?: (.+))?!
 ^^            ^^

See the regex demo

Now, the text that you will have inside groups will be without spaces as they are part of the non-capturing groups that are only meant to group subpatterns.