Problem on Regular Expression (PREG) for preg_match

Question

Possible cases: (pls ignore quote character'')

'#APPLE '
' PINEAPPLE'
' *LEMON '
' ORANGE… '
' * STRAWBERRY '
' PEAR '
' # BANANA'
' %KIWI '

I've try %.[a-zA-Z]{2,}+% seem cannot solve this problem, any expertise can help to grep be

'APPLE'
'PINEAPPLE'
'LEMON'
'ORANGE'
'STRAWBERRY'
'PEAR'
'BANANA'
'KIWI'

Answer 1

Use a website test tool for Perl regular expressions, e.g.

http://www.spaweditor.com/scripts/regex/index.php

Enter your expression:

%[a-zA-Z]{2,}+% 

Enter your data:

'#APPLE ' ' PINEAPPLE' ' *LEMON ' ' ORANGE… ' ' * STRAWBERRY ' ' PEAR ' ' # BANANA' ' %KIWI '

And run the expression:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => APPLE
            [1] => PINEAPPLE
            [2] => LEMON
            [3] => ORANGE
            [4] => STRAWBERRY
            [5] => PEAR
            [6] => BANANA
            [7] => KIWI
        )

)

That uses the following function:

preg_match_all('%[a-zA-Z]{2,}+% ', '{{your data}}', $arr, PREG_PATTERN_ORDER);

Answer 2

Instead of preg_match, use preg_match_all instead.

$pattern_test = "%[a-zA-Z]{2,}+%";
preg_match_all($pattern_test,$string,$matches);
print "<pre>"; var_dump($matches); print "</pre>";