Regex match a string with spaces (use quotes?) in an if statement

Question

How would I do a regex match as shown below but with quotes around the (\"^This\") as in the real world \"This\" will be a string that can have spaces in it.

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Answer 1

I did not manage to inline the expression like this:

if [[ "$text" =~ "^ *This " ]]; then

but if you put the expression in a variable you could use normal regex syntax like this:

pat="^ *This "
if [[ $text =~ $pat ]]; then

Note that the quoting on $text and $pat is unnessesary.

Edit: A convinient oneliner during the development:

pat="^ *This is "; [[ "   This is just a test string" =~ $pat ]]; echo $?