I am trying to find and process 'java-style' comments within a string in objective-C. I have a few regex snippets which almost work but I am stuck on one hurdle: different options seem to make the different styles work. For example, I am using this to match: NSArray* matches = [[NSRegularExpression regularExpressionWithPattern:expression options:NSRegularExpressionAnchorsMatchLines error:nil] matchesInString:string options:0 range:searchRange]; The options here allow me successfully find and process single line comments (//) but not multiline (/* */), if I change the option to NSRegularExpressionDotMatchesLineSeparators then I can make multiline work fine but I can't find the 'end' of a single line comment. I suppose really I need dot-matches-line-separators but I need a better way of finding the end of a single line comment? The regexp I have so far are: @"/\\*.*?\\*/" @"//.*$" it's clear to see if dot matches a line separator then the second one (single line) never 'finishes' but how do I fix this? I found some suggestions for single line that were more like: @"(\/\/[^"\n\r]*(?:"[^"\n\r]*"[^"\n\r]*)*[\r\n])" But that doesn't' seem to work at all! Thanks in advance for any pointers.