regex - Get final special character with a regular expression

Question

i want a regular expression that groups a few special characters in the end of a string. The special character are / - _ and the space. For example if i have the string (test) --- --- i want to get the string " --- ---" in the group. I've created the following regular expression: ([ -/_]*)$ The problem is that it get me the following string ) --- --- Why does extract me the final pharenthesis ?

Answer 1

Put the - symbol at the first or at the last inside char class Otherwise, it takes the range from space to the /(forward slash.) . ) symbol also falls in that range so that it matches ) .

([- /_]+)$

- inside character class acts as a range operator only if it's not at the first or at the last or not escaped.