I'm wondering why captures isn't able to determine the capture groups when they get too complex.
I have created the following regex, and it only matches the first group.
(type)(((( |\t))|((\/\*(([^\*\/])+)?\*\/))|((\/\/(([^\n])+)?\n))))+(\&)?(\$|\_|[a-zA-Z])((\$|\_|[a-zA-Z0-9])+)?((((( |\t))|((\/\*(([^\*\/])+)?\*\/))|((\/\/(([^\n])+)?\n))))+)?(=)
When I change it to the following regex, the captures can be applied to the appropriate scopes in captures:
(type)(\s+)([a-zA-Z0-9]+)(\s+)(=)
Is this happening because it is a simplified regex, or because something is wrong with my capture groups?
Breakdown of regex
1: Find the type keyword
(type)
2: Whitespace or a comment
(((( |\t))|((\/\*(([^\*\/])+)?\*\/))|((\/\/(([^\n])+)?\n))))+
3: Variable name
(\&)?(\$|\_|[a-zA-Z])((\$|\_|[a-zA-Z0-9])+)?
4: Whitespace or a comment
(((( |\t))|((\/\*(([^\*\/])+)?\*\/))|((\/\/(([^\n])+)?\n))))+
- Equal sign
(=)
EDIT
I noticed my regex is a bit messy, so here's a better one that also doesn't work:
/(type)((\/\*([^\*\/]+)?\*\/)|(\/\/([^\n]+)?\n)| |\t)+((\$|\_|[a-zA-Z])((\$|\_|[a-zA-Z0-9])+)?)((\/\*([^\*\/]+)?\*\/)|(\/\/([^\n]+)?\n)| |\t)+(=)/