hh:mm 24

This should work: ^([a-zA-Z0-9]-[a-zA-Z0-9])+$ Also if you want to have exactly 135 hyphens: ^([a-zA-Z0-9]-[a-zA-Z0-9]){135}$...

i was just trying to match words and assign them to variables that i could later search for in my logs

i was just trying to match words and assign them to variables that i could later search for in my logs

i was just trying to match words and assign them to variables that i could later search for in my logs