PHP Regexp with variable in string to search

Question

I'm in need of a regexp that will allow me to retrieve all the following data from a php source file :

MUI('Some text')
MUI("Some text", $lang)

The regexp is used to extract all the terms enclosed in MUI("...") in a php file in order to build a list of items to translate. I already have the regexp for the first case :

MUI("Some text") > $pattern = '/MUI\((["\'].*?)["\']\)/';

But I had to add a parameter which is a variable and since then my regexp wont find the second case

MUI("Some text", $lang).

Please be aware that the text to find may be enclosed by ' or ". Thanks in advance for your ideas.

What you are trying to do is not really possible in a robust manner. Reason is that regular expressions as a tool are not mighty enough for the task. You might be able to get a working solution, but actually that would only be usually working. It is easy to demonstrate situations where the solution will fail. For example something like that: MUI("Some ) text", $lang). What you actually need as a tool is not regular expressions, but a language parser that is able to understand the actual structure of a valid PHP file. — arkascha
– arkascha, Commented Nov 18, 2022 at 11:33
See MUI\((?|"([^"\\]*(?:\\.[^"\\]*)*)"|'([^'\\]*(?:\\.[^'\\]*)*)') demo — Wiktor Stribiżew
– Wiktor Stribiżew, Commented Nov 18, 2022 at 11:38
@WiktorStribiżew Just curious, can't it be as simple as this? — mighty_dev
– mighty_dev, Commented Nov 18, 2022 at 12:45
@WiktorStribiżew : Seems to work in your demo. I'll try it live in a few and will keep you posted. Thx for your input. — BlackPage
– BlackPage, Commented Nov 18, 2022 at 12:47

Wiktor Stribiżew · Accepted Answer · 2022-11-18 12:53:19Z

1

You can use

(?s)MUI\((?|"([^"\\]*(?:\\.[^"\\]*)*)"|'([^'\\]*(?:\\.[^'\\]*)*)')

See the regex demo.

Details:

(?s) - . now matches any chars including line break chars
MUI\( - MUI( string
(?|"([^"\\]*(?:\\.[^"\\]*)*)"|'([^'\\]*(?:\\.[^'\\]*)*)') - Branch reset group matching either:
- "([^"\\]*(?:\\.[^"\\]*)*)" - a double quote string literal (capturing what is in between quotes into Group 1)
- | - or
- '([^'\\]*(?:\\.[^'\\]*)*)' - a single quote string literal (capturing what is in between quotes into Group 1 - yes, still Group 1 since this is an alternative inside a branch reset group).

answered Nov 18, 2022 at 12:53

Wiktor Stribiżew

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2 Comments

BlackPage Over a year ago

thx for your input. I've tried it but PHP throws an exception : $pattern = '/(?s)MUI((?|"([^"\]*(?:\\.[^"\]*)*)"|\'([^\'\]*(?:\\.[^\'\]*)*)\')/'; preg_match_all($pattern,$Content,$matches); preg_match_all():Compilation failed : missing terminating ] at offset 60. Any ideas on the trouble, maybe PHP needs some kind of escaping ?

Wiktor Stribiżew Over a year ago

@BlackPage In PHP, it must be defined as $regex = '~MUI\((?|"([^"\\\\]*(?:\\\\.[^"\\\\]*)*)"|\'([^\'\\\\]*(?:\\\\.[^\'\\\\]*)*)\')~s';

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