Regex (?:[,\\. ]*(&|and) ?) is not matching ', and "

Question

Regex (?:[,\\\\. ]*(&|and) ?) is not matching ", and " . But when i change the matcher to (?:[,\\\\.] ?(&|and) ?) the pattern ", and " is getting matched. What is causing pblm?

When i remove the space from [,\\\\. ]* [,\\\\. ]* it seems working. I simply dnt understand.

Answer 1

I can find the match even with the space. It would be helpful if you can post the exact code.

Pattern p = Pattern.compile("(?:[,\\. ]*(&|and) ?)");    
Matcher matcher = p.matcher(", and ");
System.out.println("Match? " + matcher.find());