.NET Regex match space character when IgnorePatternWhitespace is on

Question

I have a large regular expression and I've turned on IgnorePatternWhitespace so I can make it more readable. My problem is that I want to match a literal space character. What's the best way to do that?

An example:

Regex myRegex = new Regex(@"
  (?> <table[^>]*> ) # Find a table
  (?> .*?<tr> ) # Find the first row
  (?> .*?<th> ) # Find the first header column
  My phrase # Look for our key phrase
  etc.
", RegexOptions.IgnorePatternWhitespace);

In the above example, "My phrase" should include a space.

Answer 1

Use "\s" or "[ ]"

Answer 2

It would appear that you can simply escape the space character with a backslash:

My\ phrase