Capture two regular expression from string

Question

I have strings containing this (where the number are integers representing the user id)

  @[calbert](3)
  @[username](684684)

I figured I need the following to get the username and user id

   \((.*?)\)

and

   \[(.*?)])

But is there a way to get both at once?

And PHP returns, is it possible to only get the result without the parenthesis (and brackets in the username case)

  Array
    (
[0] => (3)
[1] => 3
     )

Check the PHP function preg_match_all() and the regex syntax. — axiac
– axiac, Commented Jan 16, 2015 at 13:42

halfer · Accepted Answer · 2023-07-26 17:12:52Z

3

\[([^\]]*)\]|\(([^)]*)\)

Try this. You need to use | or operator. This provides regex engine to provide alternating capturing group if the first one fails.

$re = "/\\[([^\\]]*)\\]|\\(([^)]*)\\)/im";
$str = " @[calbert](3)\n @[username](684684)";
 
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches);

Or you can use your own regex. \((.*?)\)|\[(.*?)\])

halfer

20.2k20 gold badges110 silver badges207 bronze badges

answered Jan 16, 2015 at 13:36

vks

68.1k11 gold badges96 silver badges132 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

Avinash Raj · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-16 14:05:21Z

0

Through positive lookbehind and lookahead assertion.

(?<=\[)[^\]]*(?=])|(?<=\()\d+(?=\))

answered Jan 16, 2015 at 13:44

Avinash Raj

175k32 gold badges247 silver badges289 bronze badges

How to only get numbers because is the string is @[leesfer](3) (not that), "not that" is a match ??