PHP preg_match_all same line

Question

Having trouble with a regular expression (they are not my strong suit). I'm trying to match all strings between {{ and }}, but if a set of brackets occurs on the same line, it counts that as a single match... Example:

$string = "
  Hello, kind sir
  {{SHOULD_MATCH1}} {{SHOULD_MATCH2}}
  welcome to
  {{SHOULD_MATCH3}}
  ";

preg_match_all("/{{(.*)}}/", $string, $matches);

var_dump($matches); // returns arrays with 2 results instead of 3

returns:

array(2) {
  [0]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(35) "{{SHOULD_MATCH1}} {{SHOULD_MATCH2}}"
    [1]=>
    string(17) "{{SHOULD_MATCH3}}"
  }
  [1]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(31) "SHOULD_MATCH1}} {{SHOULD_MATCH2"
    [1]=>
    string(13) "SHOULD_MATCH3"
  }
}

Any help? Thanks!

Jon · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-14 22:50:33Z

5

Replace the * quantifier with its non-greedy form *?.

This will make it match as little as possible while still allowing the expression to match as a whole, which is different from its current behavior of matching as much as possible.

answered Jan 14, 2013 at 22:50

Jon

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2 Comments

Fabien Sa Over a year ago

Or you can add the flag "U" to force non-greedy mode. Like preg_match_all("/{{(.*)}}/U", $string, $matches)

Mike Over a year ago

Accepted for explanation, thanks Jon. +1 to Fab Sa for a correct answer as well.

Shiplu Mokaddim · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-14 23:01:51Z

1

You can use one the following patterns.

{{(.+?)}
{{([^}]+)
{{(\w+)
{{([[:digit:][:upper:]_]+)
{{([\p{Lu}\p{N}_]+)

edited Jan 14, 2013 at 23:01

answered Jan 14, 2013 at 22:56

Shiplu Mokaddim

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