03. The earliest match wins

• A simplistic view is that when trying to match, a regex engine starts at the first position in the string, and tries to match the regex.
• If it matches, great! It's done right there. If it doesn't match, then it moves along one character, and tries the regex starting from the next position. This is sometimes called "bump"ing along.
• (While we are considering this somewhat simplified view, it may be of interest to mention that if the regex engine bumps along to a point where the regex no longer matches, it can backtrack to an earlier point and try again from there - but we will go over exactly how this happens a little later. For now, take my word for it.)
• So, for example, when trying to match the regex:

    fanta
  

  On the string:

    This isn't fantastic, let's drink fanta!
  

  The regex will match:

    This isn't fantastic, let's drink fanta!
               ^^^^^
  

• So, the earliest match has won - it's the "fanta" in "fantastic" that it matches, and not the word fanta.