[Lua]Regular Expression Help !

Hi there. Im writing an irc bot and am having to use regular expressions everywhere to wade through the crap that is RAW IRC. I have found a few patterns online that split stuff down nicely. I however cannot find or stumble uppon a regular expression or group of regular expressions that will return the data i need from the following line:

Code: [Select]

ahref ahref :+#thc %#crankeye

Lua doesn't actually call its pattern matching regular expressions but its practically the same eg.:

Code: [Select]

prefix, cmd, param = string.match(p, "^:([^ ]+) ([^ ]+)(.*)$")

splits a line into its base parts eg. ":ahref!~ahref@FDC777BF.FFB88ACD.E46257AB.IP PRIVMSG #THC :cowbot" to
prefix = ahref!~ahref@FDC777BF.FFB88ACD.E46257AB.IP
cmd = PRIVMSG
param = #THC :cowbot

what i need from:

Code: [Select]

ahref ahref :~#thc %#crankeye

is just a simple
user = ahref
modes = ~(im only interested in modes on "#thc")

anyone got any ideas ?

EDIT: i can now get the FIRST nickname with " ([%w]+)" but i want the second.

EDIT4: got them both first one seems a bit hacky but meh
         nick = string.match(param,"[%w] ([%w]+)")
         modes = string.match(param, "([+%%~&@])#thc")

I don't think anyone else uses lua

You make me sad. its a nice language