Regex extract number for RewriteRule

For http://macintosh.local/clientname/102

I can get the numeric reference (3 digits) like this:

RewriteRule ^[^/]+/([0-9]{3}+)/?$ album.php?ref=$1 [L]

Now I want to get my reference in my SEO URL:

http://macintosh.local/clientname/102-some-keywords

just replace /? with .*

RewriteRule ^[^/]+/([0-9]{3}+).*$ album.php?ref=$1 [L]

It looks like your existing regex should work just fine. It won't pick up non-numeric characters, after all.