Yes. Regex tend to become rather fast write only. One solution is commenting, but is still complex. What I like to do now (in C) is define parts of it. Just a crude example to get the idea:

   // STRing: matches anything inside quotes (single or double)
   #define STR "[\"'](.*)[\"']"
   // NUMber: matches decimal or hexadecimal numbers
   #define NUM "([[:digit:]]x?[[:xdigit:]]*)"
   
   regcomp(&reg_exp, STR NUM , REG_EXTENDED | REG_ICASE);