@zacksoft,
I agree that it looks complicated at first and I'm glad that it works out for you.
But it's not so complicated.
I will explain to you why it isn't as complicated as it might look.
^ this is called an anchor, and points to the start of the line (will always be there)
\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}\s*\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2},\d+\s* this traverses over the date and timefields (will always be there)
(?:\b(?:ACDT|ACST|ACT|ACWST...|BOT|...|WST|YAKT|YEKT)\b\s*)? this will look for a valid timezone abbreviation. A list of all valid timezone abbreviations I found on the web.
It basically is a OR -list. If it doesn't find ACDT, it will look if it finds ACST, if not it looks if it finds ACT and so on. The very last ? question mark makes the entire statement that is encased in paranteshis optional. It means, that the timezone might be there or not. (optional)
(?<level>\w+) regardless of the existence of the optional timezone field, the field that matches your text comes afterwards (will always be there)
You might have notice the \b in the regex. \b marks a word-boundary. Long story short it makes sure that the timezone matching instruction doesn't match words like for example "ACTION", "BOTTOM", "PETS", "PHOTO" or "WESTWARDS".
Hope this helps a bit.
Regards,
pyro_wood
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