Extract data from a table of content with regex -

consider following string, table of content

table of content  name abc  ......... 20 name fghkjkj kjkj . 31 name.with.dot ..... 45 

i want extract section's name 'name abc' 'name fghkjkj kjkj' , 'name.with.dot'

i didn't found yet right regex achieve goal, insights?

i think following should work:

^.*?(?= \.+ \d+$) 

assuming you're working line line or have multiline mode enabled. positive lookahead assertion makes sure end match dots , number follow on line.

explanation:

^      # start of line .*?    # match number of characters, few possible (?=    # ahead assert following matches here:  [ ]   # space  \.+   # 1 or more dots  [ ]   # space  \d+   # number  $     # end of line )      # end of lookahead