Shit, I missed the part where he said he has to do it by index. Yeah, abusing capture groups isn't going to help him there.

yeah with those examples it is really easy. As others have suggested just target the spaces and slice out what you want. I was afraid it would be something like
haystackneedlehaystack

But always watch out for false positives. Like for example, lets say you got this data one day:

1361936079 account 1103066 removed
1361849622 account TEXTACC removed
3748838348 account Joe's Crab Shack removed
1361849661 account 1102605 removed

Make sure those extra spaces (in "Joe's Crab Shack") won't fuck you up.

This post was edited by Azrad on Feb 28 2013 08:41am