regex - Regular expression containing one word or another

Question

I need to create an expression matching a whole number followed by either "seconds" or ""minutes"

I tried this expression: ([0-9]+)s+(seconds)|(minutes)

It works fine for seconds, but not minutes.

E.g. "5 seconds" gives 5;seconds; while "5 minutes" gives ;;minutes

Answer 1

You just missed an extra pair of brackets for the "OR" symbol. The following should do the trick:

([0-9]+)s+((seconds)|(minutes))

Without those you were either matching a number followed by seconds OR just the word minutes