I've been trying for a while and not sure what to Google but I want both of these to be matched
Someone does something
and
Someone tries to do something
What I thought would work is
/^Someone (tries to)? do(es)? something$/
But that only matches the second string.
They are separate strings, not a single string spanning multiple lines.
Use
/^Someone(?: tries to)? do(?:es)? something$/
See proof
Explanation
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^ the beginning of the string
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Someone 'Someone'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(?: group, but do not capture (optional
(matching the most amount possible)):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
tries to ' tries to'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
)? end of grouping
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
do ' do'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(?: group, but do not capture (optional
(matching the most amount possible)):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
es 'es'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
)? end of grouping
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
something ' something'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ before an optional \n, and the end of the
string