CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpregexpreg-match-all
iceteea
iceteea

Reputation: 1224

preg_match returns weird result

I need to extract text in curly braces but only if the first word within them is a "allowed" word. for example the following text:

awesome text,
a new line {find this braces},
{find some more} in the next line.
Please {dont find} this ones.

in this simple example "find" stands for a allowed word

my attemp:

$pattern        = '!{find(.*)}!is';
$matches        = array();
preg_match_all( $pattern, $text, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER );

returns a weird result (print_r):

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => {find this braces},
    {find some more} in the next line.
    Please {dont find}
            [1] =>  this braces},
    {find some more} in the next line.
    Please {dont find
        )

)

while working fine without the "find" in the pattern (but then the one with "dont" is found, too.

What may be the cause for this?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 61

Answers (1)

Anirudha
Anirudha

Reputation: 32797

.* would match greedily i.e as much as possible.Use .*? to match lazily i.e as less as possible

So your regex would be 

!{find(.*?)}!is

Alternatively you can use [^{}] instead of .*?..In that case you don't need to use singleline mode

!{find([^{}]*)}!i

Upvotes: 3

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