I'm trying to match different variations of distance presentation which works pretty well for bigger values but fails on single digits
^(?:(?<distanceMeter>\d+[,|.]?\d+?) ?\/? ?(?<distanceFemaleMeter>\d+?[,|.]?\d+?)?) ?-m ?(?<text>[\w\s]+)
matches
But it fails to match
I thought d+ always matches 1 or more digits, but its not working.
In the pattern that you tried you use \d+? which matches at least 1 digits, and making it non greedy matches the least amount, but there still has to be at least a single digit.
Note that using (?:\d+)? is the same as \d*, and using [\w\s]+ at the end can also match only whitespace chars (that can also match only newlines) You can use a space instead, as in the rest of the pattern you also match spaces.
Your examples should all match the digits at the start, and are followed by an optional / and digits part and then the -m part should be present followed by "text"
For that format, you can make the whole part with / and the digits optional.
^(?<distanceMeter>\d+(?:[,.]\d+)?)(?: ?\/ ?(?<distanceFemaleMeter>\d+(?:[,.]\d+)?))? ?-m ?(?<text>\w+(?: \w+)*)
^ Start of string(?<distanceMeter>\d+(?:[,.]\d+)?) Group distanceMeter, match 1+ digits with an optional decimal part(?: Non capture group
?\/ ? Match / between optional spaces(?<distanceFemaleMeter>\d+(?:[,.]\d+)?) Group distanceFemaleMeter, match 1+ digits with an optional decimal part)? Close the non capture group and make it optional ?-m ? Match -m between optional spaces(?<text>\w+(?: \w+)*) Group text, match 1+ word chars and optionally repeat a space and 1+ word charsSee a regex demo.