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  • preg_match_all()

    (PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7)

    执行一个全局正则表达式匹配

    说明

    preg_match_all(string $pattern,string $subject[,array &$matches[,int $flags= PREG_PATTERN_ORDER[,int $offset= 0]]]): int

    搜索$subject中所有匹配$pattern给定正则表达式的匹配结果并且将它们以$flag指定顺序输出到$matches中.

    在第一个匹配找到后,子序列继续从最后一次匹配位置搜索.

    参数

    $pattern

    要搜索的模式,字符串形式。

    $subject

    输入字符串。

    $matches

    多维数组,作为输出参数输出所有匹配结果,数组排序通过$flags指定。

    $flags

    可以结合下面标记使用(注意不能同时使用PREG_PATTERN_ORDERPREG_SET_ORDER):

    PREG_PATTERN_ORDER

    结果排序为$matches[0]保存完整模式的所有匹配,$matches[1]保存第一个子组的所有匹配,以此类推。

    <?php
    preg_match_all("|<[^>]+>(.*)</[^>]+>|U",
        "<b>example: </b><div align=left>this is a test</div>",
        $out, PREG_PATTERN_ORDER);
    echo $out[0][0] . ", " . $out[0][1] . "\n";
    echo $out[1][0] . ", " . $out[1][1] . "\n";
    ?>
    

    以上例程会输出:

    <b>example: </b>, <div align=left>this is a test</div>
    example: , this is a test
    

    因此,$out[0]是包含匹配完整模式的字符串的数组,$out[1]是包含闭合标签内的字符串的数组。

    如果正则表达式包含了带名称的子组,$matches额外包含了带名称子组的键。

    如果正则表达式里,子组名称重名了,则仅最右侧的自组储存在$matches[NAME]中。

    <?php
    preg_match_all(
        '/(?J)(?<match>foo)|(?<match>bar)/',
        'foo bar',
        $matches,
        PREG_PATTERN_ORDER
    );
    print_r($matches['match']);
    ?>
    

    以上例程会输出:

    Array
    (
        [0] => 
        [1] => bar
    )
    
    PREG_SET_ORDER

    结果排序为$matches[0]包含第一次匹配得到的所有匹配(包含子组),$matches[1]是包含第二次匹配到的所有匹配(包含子组)的数组,以此类推。

    <?php
    preg_match_all("|<[^>]+>(.*)</[^>]+>|U",
        "<b>example: </b><div align=\"left\">this is a test</div>",
        $out, PREG_SET_ORDER);
    echo $out[0][0] . ", " . $out[0][1] . "\n";
    echo $out[1][0] . ", " . $out[1][1] . "\n";
    ?>
    

    以上例程会输出:

    <b>example: </b>, example:
    <div align="left">this is a test</div>, this is a test
    
    PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE

    如果这个标记被传递,每个发现的匹配返回时会增加它相对目标字符串的偏移量。注意这会改变$matches中的每一个匹配结果字符串元素,使其成为一个第0个元素为匹配结果字符串,第1个元素为匹配结果字符串在$subject中的偏移量。

    <?php
    preg_match_all('/(foo)(bar)(baz)/', 'foobarbaz', $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE);
    print_r($matches);
    ?>
    

    以上例程会输出:

    Array
    (
        [0] => Array
            (
                [0] => Array
                    (
                        [0] => foobarbaz
                        [1] => 0
                    )
            )
        [1] => Array
            (
                [0] => Array
                    (
                        [0] => foo
                        [1] => 0
                    )
            )
        [2] => Array
            (
                [0] => Array
                    (
                        [0] => bar
                        [1] => 3
                    )
            )
        [3] => Array
            (
                [0] => Array
                    (
                        [0] => baz
                        [1] => 6
                    )
            )
    )
    

    如果没有给定排序标记,假定设置为PREG_PATTERN_ORDER

    $offset

    通常,查找时从目标字符串的开始位置开始。可选参数$offset用于从目标字符串中指定位置开始搜索(单位是字节)。

    Note:

    使用$offset参数不同于传递substr($subject,$offset)的结果到preg_match_all()作为目标字符串,因为$pattern可以包含断言比如^$或者(?<=x)。示例查看preg_match()。

    返回值

    返回完整匹配次数(可能是0),或者如果发生错误返回FALSE

    更新日志

    版本说明
    5.4.0参数$matches成为可选的。
    5.3.6如果$offset大于$subject的程度,将返回FALSE
    5.2.2子命名分组语法可以接受(?<name>)(?'name')以及(?P<name>)了。之前版本仅接受(?P<name>)方式。

    范例

    查找所有文本中的电话号码。

    <?php
    preg_match_all("/\(?  (\d{3})?  \)?  (?(1)  [\-\s] ) \d{3}-\d{4}/x",
                    "Call 555-1212 or 1-800-555-1212", $phones);
    ?>
    

    查找匹配的HTML标签(贪婪)

    <?php
    //\\2是一个后向引用的示例. 这会告诉pcre它必须匹配正则表达式中第二个圆括号(这里是([\w]+))
    //匹配到的结果. 这里使用两个反斜线是因为这里使用了双引号.
    $html = "<b>bold text</b><a href=howdy.html>click me</a>";
    preg_match_all("/(<([\w]+)[^>]*>)(.*?)(<\/\\2>)/", $html, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER);
    foreach ($matches as $val) {
        echo "matched: " . $val[0] . "\n";
        echo "part 1: " . $val[1] . "\n";
        echo "part 2: " . $val[2] . "\n";
        echo "part 3: " . $val[3] . "\n";
        echo "part 4: " . $val[4] . "\n\n";
    }
    ?>
    

    以上例程会输出:

    matched: <b>bold text</b>
    part 1: <b>
    part 2: b
    part 3: bold text
    part 4: </b>
    matched: <a href=howdy.html>click me</a>
    part 1: <a href=howdy.html>
    part 2: a
    part 3: click me
    part 4: </a>
    

    使用子命名组

    <?php
    $str = <<<FOO
    a: 1
    b: 2
    c: 3
    FOO;
    preg_match_all('/(?P<name>\w+): (?P<digit>\d+)/', $str, $matches);
    /* 下面代码在php 5.2.2(pcre 7.0)或更高版本下工作, 不过, 为了向后兼容
     * 推荐使用上面的方式. */
    // preg_match_all('/(?<name>\w+): (?<digit>\d+)/', $str, $matches);
    print_r($matches);
    ?>
    

    以上例程会输出:

    Array
    (
        [0] => Array
            (
                [0] => a: 1
                [1] => b: 2
                [2] => c: 3
            )
        [name] => Array
            (
                [0] => a
                [1] => b
                [2] => c
            )
        [1] => Array
            (
                [0] => a
                [1] => b
                [2] => c
            )
        [digit] => Array
            (
                [0] => 1
                [1] => 2
                [2] => 3
            )
        [2] => Array
            (
                [0] => 1
                [1] => 2
                [2] => 3
            )
    )
    

    参见

    if you want to extract all {token}s from a string:
    <?php
    $pattern = "/{[^}]*}/";
    $subject = "{token1} foo {token2} bar";
    preg_match_all($pattern, $subject, $matches);
    print_r($matches);
    ?>
    output:
    Array
    (
      [0] => Array
        (
          [0] => {token1}
          [1] => {token2}
        )
    )
    The code that john at mccarthy dot net posted is not necessary. If you want your results grouped by individual match simply use:
    <?
    preg_match_all($pattern, $string, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER);
    ?>
    E.g.
    <?
    preg_match_all('/([GH])([12])([!?])/', 'G1? H2!', $matches); // Default PREG_PATTERN_ORDER
    // $matches = array(0 => array(0 => 'G1?', 1 => 'H2!'),
    //         1 => array(0 => 'G', 1 => 'H'),
    //         2 => array(0 => '1', 1 => '2'),
    //         3 => array(0 => '?', 1 => '!'))
    preg_match_all('/([GH])([12])([!?])/', 'G1? H2!', $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER);
    // $matches = array(0 => array(0 => 'G1?', 1 => 'G', 2 => '1', 3 => '?'),
    //         1 => array(0 => 'H2!', 1 => 'H', 2 => '2', 3 => '!'))
    ?>
    
    Be careful with this pattern match and large input buffer on preg_match_* functions.
    <?php
    $pattern = '/\{(?:[^{}]|(?R))*\}/';
    preg_match_all($pattern, $buffer, $matches); 
    ?>
    if $buffer is 80+ KB in size, you'll end up with segfault! 
    [89396.588854] php[4384]: segfault at 7ffd6e2bdeb0 ip 00007fa20c8d67ed sp 00007ffd6e2bde70 error 6 in libpcre.so.3.13.1[7fa20c8c3000+3c000]
    This is due to the PCRE recursion. This is a known bug in PHP since 2008, but it's source is not PHP itself but PCRE library. 
    Rasmus Lerdorf has the answer: https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=45735#1365812629
    "The problem here is that there is no way to detect run-away regular expressions 
    here without huge performance and memory penalties. Yes, we could build PCRE in a 
    way that it wouldn't segfault and we could crank up the default backtrack limit 
    to something huge, but it would slow every regex call down by a lot. If PCRE 
    provided a way to handle this in a more graceful manner without the performance 
    hit we would of course use it."
    I needed a function to rotate the results of a preg_match_all query, and made this. Not sure if it exists.
    <?php
    function turn_array($m)
    {
      for ($z = 0;$z < count($m);$z++)
      {
        for ($x = 0;$x < count($m[$z]);$x++)
        {
          $rt[$x][$z] = $m[$z][$x];
        }
      }  
      
      return $rt;
    }
    ?>
    Example - Take results of some preg_match_all query:
    Array
    (
      [0] => Array
        (
          [1] => Banff 
          [2] => Canmore
          [3] => Invermere
        )
     
      [1] => Array
        (
          [1] => AB 
          [2] => AB
          [3] => BC
        )
     
      [2] => Array
        (
          [1] => 51.1746254 
          [2] => 51.0938416
          [3] => 50.5065193
        )
     
      [3] => Array
        (
          [1] => -115.5719757 
          [2] => -115.3517761
          [3] => -116.0321884
        )
     
      [4] => Array
        (
          [1] => T1L 1B3 
          [2] => T1W 1N2
          [3] => V0B 2G0
        )
    )
    Rotate it 90 degrees to group results as records:
    Array
    (
      [0] => Array
        (
          [1] => Banff 
          [2] => AB
          [3] => 51.1746254
          [4] => -115.5719757
          [5] => T1L 1B3
        )
     
      [1] => Array
        (
          [1] => Canmore
          [2] => AB
          [3] => 51.0938416
          [4] => -115.3517761
          [5] => T1W 1N2
        )
     
      [2] => Array
        (
          [1] => Invermere
          [2] => BC
          [3] => 50.5065193
          [4] => -116.0321884
          [5] => V0B 2G0
        )
    )
    Here is a awesome online regex editor https://regex101.com/
    which helps you test your regular expressions (prce, js, python) with real-time highlighting of regex match on data input.
    Here's some fleecy code to 1. validate RCF2822 conformity of address lists and 2. to extract the address specification (the part commonly known as 'email'). I wouldn't suggest using it for input form email checking, but it might be just what you want for other email applications. I know it can be optimized further, but that part I'll leave up to you nutcrackers. The total length of the resulting Regex is about 30000 bytes. That because it accepts comments. You can remove that by setting $cfws to $fws and it shrinks to about 6000 bytes. Conformity checking is absolutely and strictly referring to RFC2822. Have fun and email me if you have any enhancements!
    <?php
    function mime_extract_rfc2822_address($string)
    {
        //rfc2822 token setup
        $crlf      = "(?:\r\n)";
        $wsp      = "[\t ]";
        $text      = "[\\x01-\\x09\\x0B\\x0C\\x0E-\\x7F]";
        $quoted_pair  = "(?:\\\\$text)";
        $fws      = "(?:(?:$wsp*$crlf)?$wsp+)";
        $ctext     = "[\\x01-\\x08\\x0B\\x0C\\x0E-\\x1F" .
                 "!-'*-[\\]-\\x7F]";
        $comment    = "(\\((?:$fws?(?:$ctext|$quoted_pair|(?1)))*" .
                 "$fws?\\))";
        $cfws      = "(?:(?:$fws?$comment)*(?:(?:$fws?$comment)|$fws))";
        //$cfws      = $fws; //an alternative to comments
        $atext     = "[!#-'*+\\-\\/0-9=?A-Z\\^-~]";
        $atom      = "(?:$cfws?$atext+$cfws?)";
        $dot_atom_text = "(?:$atext+(?:\\.$atext+)*)";
        $dot_atom    = "(?:$cfws?$dot_atom_text$cfws?)";
        $qtext     = "[\\x01-\\x08\\x0B\\x0C\\x0E-\\x1F!#-[\\]-\\x7F]";
        $qcontent    = "(?:$qtext|$quoted_pair)";
        $quoted_string = "(?:$cfws?\"(?:$fws?$qcontent)*$fws?\"$cfws?)";
        $dtext     = "[\\x01-\\x08\\x0B\\x0C\\x0E-\\x1F!-Z\\^-\\x7F]";
        $dcontent    = "(?:$dtext|$quoted_pair)";
        $domain_literal = "(?:$cfws?\\[(?:$fws?$dcontent)*$fws?]$cfws?)";
        $domain     = "(?:$dot_atom|$domain_literal)";
        $local_part   = "(?:$dot_atom|$quoted_string)";
        $addr_spec   = "($local_part@$domain)";
        $display_name  = "(?:(?:$atom|$quoted_string)+)";
        $angle_addr   = "(?:$cfws?<$addr_spec>$cfws?)";
        $name_addr   = "(?:$display_name?$angle_addr)";
        $mailbox    = "(?:$name_addr|$addr_spec)";
        $mailbox_list  = "(?:(?:(?:(?<=:)|,)$mailbox)+)";
        $group     = "(?:$display_name:(?:$mailbox_list|$cfws)?;$cfws?)";
        $address    = "(?:$mailbox|$group)";
        $address_list  = "(?:(?:^|,)$address)+";
        //output length of string (just so you see how f**king long it is)
        echo(strlen($address_list) . " ");
        //apply expression
        preg_match_all("/^$address_list$/", $string, $array, PREG_SET_ORDER);
        return $array;
    };
    ?>
    
    Here is a function that replaces all occurrences of a number in a string by the number--
    <?php
    function decremente_chaine($chaine)
      {
        //récupérer toutes les occurrences de nombres et leurs indices
        preg_match_all("/[0-9]+/",$chaine,$out,PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE);
          //parcourir les occurrences 
          for($i=0;$i<sizeof($out[0]);$i++)
          {
            $longueurnombre = strlen((string)$out[0][$i][0]);
            $taillechaine = strlen($chaine);
            // découper la chaine en 3 morceaux
            $debut = substr($chaine,0,$out[0][$i][1]);
            $milieu = ($out[0][$i][0])-1;
            $fin = substr($chaine,$out[0][$i][1]+$longueurnombre,$taillechaine);
             // si c'est 10,100,1000 etc. on décale tout de 1 car le résultat comporte un chiffre de moins
             if(preg_match('#[1][0]+$#', $out[0][$i][0]))
             {
              for($j = $i+1;$j<sizeof($out[0]);$j++)
              {
                $out[0][$j][1] = $out[0][$j][1] -1;
              }
             }
            $chaine = $debut.$milieu.$fin;
          }
        return $chaine;
      }
    ?>
    
    PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE always seems to provide byte offsets, rather than character position offsets, even when you are using the unicode /u modifier.
    I found simpleXML to be useful only in cases where the XML was extremely small, otherwise the server would run out of memory (I suspect there is a memory leak or something?). So while searching for alternative parsers, I decided to try a simpler approach. I don't know how this compares with cpu usage, but I know it works with large XML structures. This is more a manual method, but it works for me since I always know what structure of data I will be receiving. 
    Essentially I just preg_match() unique nodes to find the values I am looking for, or I preg_match_all to find multiple nodes. This puts the results in an array and I can then process this data as I please.
    I was unhappy though, that preg_match_all() stores the data twice (requiring twice the memory), one array for all the full pattern matches, and one array for all the sub pattern matches. You could probably write your own function that overcame this. But for now this works for me, and I hope it saves someone else some time as well.
    // SAMPLE XML
    <RETS ReplyCode="0" ReplyText="Operation Successful">
     <COUNT Records="14" />
     <DELIMITER value="09" />
     <COLUMNS>PropertyID</COLUMNS>
     <DATA>521897</DATA>
     <DATA>677208</DATA>
     <DATA>686037</DATA>
    </RETS>
    <?PHP
    // SAMPLE FUNCTION
    function parse_xml($xml) {
      
      
      // GET DELIMITER (single instance)
      $match_res = preg_match('/<DELIMITER value ?= ?"(.*)" ?\/>/', $xml, $matches);
      if(!empty($matches[1])) {
        $results["delimiter"] = chr($matches[1]);
      } else {
        // DEFAULT DELIMITER
        $results["delimiter"] = "\t";
      }
      unset($match_res, $matches);
      
      
      // GET MULTIPLE DATA NODES (multiple instances)
      $results["data_count"] = preg_match_all("/<DATA>(.*)<\/DATA>/", $xml, $matches);
      // GET MATCHES OF SUB PATTERN, DISCARD THE REST
      $results["data"]=$matches[1];
      unset($match_res, $matches);
      
      // UNSET XML TO SAVE MEMORY (should unset outside the function as well)
      unset($xml);
      // RETURN RESULTS ARRAY
      return $results;
      
      
    }
    ?>
    
    Recently I had to write search engine in hebrew and ran into huge amount of problems. My data was stored in MySQL table with utf8_bin encoding.
    So, to be able to write hebrew in utf8 table you need to do
    <?php
    $prepared_text = addslashes(urf8_encode($text));
    ?>
    But then I had to find if some word exists in stored text. This is the place I got stuck. Simple preg_match would not find text since hebrew doesnt work that easy. I've tried with /u and who kows what else.
    Solution was somewhat logical and simple... 
    <?php
    $db_text = bin2hex(stripslashes(utf8_decode($db_text)));
    $word = bin2hex($word);
    $found = preg_match_all("/($word)+/i", $db_text, $matches);
    ?>
    I've used preg_match_all since it returns number of occurences. So I could sort search results acording to that.
    Hope someone finds this useful!
    This is a function to convert byte offsets into (UTF-8) character offsets (this is reagardless of whether you use /u modifier:
    <?php
    function mb_preg_match_all($ps_pattern, $ps_subject, &$pa_matches, $pn_flags = PREG_PATTERN_ORDER, $pn_offset = 0, $ps_encoding = NULL) {
     // WARNING! - All this function does is to correct offsets, nothing else:
     //
     if (is_null($ps_encoding))
      $ps_encoding = mb_internal_encoding();
     $pn_offset = strlen(mb_substr($ps_subject, 0, $pn_offset, $ps_encoding));
     $ret = preg_match_all($ps_pattern, $ps_subject, $pa_matches, $pn_flags, $pn_offset);
     if ($ret && ($pn_flags & PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE))
      foreach($pa_matches as &$ha_match)
       foreach($ha_match as &$ha_match)
        $ha_match[1] = mb_strlen(substr($ps_subject, 0, $ha_match[1]), $ps_encoding);
      //
      // (code is independent of PREG_PATTER_ORDER / PREG_SET_ORDER)
     return $ret;
     }
    ?>
    
    For parsing queries with entities use:
    <?php
    preg_match_all("/(?:^|(?<=\&(?![a-z]+\;)))([^\=]+)=(.*?)(?:$|\&(?![a-z]+\;))/i",
     $s, $m, PREG_SET_ORDER );
    ?>
    
    Perhaps you want to find the positions of all anchor tags. This will return a two dimensional array of which the starting and ending positions will be returned.
    <?php
    function getTagPositions($strBody)
    {
      define(DEBUG, false);
      define(DEBUG_FILE_PREFIX, "/tmp/findlinks_");
      
      preg_match_all("/<[^>]+>(.*)<\/[^>]+>/U", $strBody, $strTag, PREG_PATTERN_ORDER);
      $intOffset = 0;
      $intIndex = 0;
      $intTagPositions = array();
      foreach($strTag[0] as $strFullTag) {
        if(DEBUG == true) {
          $fhDebug = fopen(DEBUG_FILE_PREFIX.time(), "a");
          fwrite($fhDebug, $fulltag."\n");
          fwrite($fhDebug, "Starting position: ".strpos($strBody, $strFullTag, $intOffset)."\n");
          fwrite($fhDebug, "Ending position: ".(strpos($strBody, $strFullTag, $intOffset) + strlen($strFullTag))."\n");
          fwrite($fhDebug, "Length: ".strlen($strFullTag)."\n\n");
          fclose($fhDebug);
        }
        $intTagPositions[$intIndex] = array('start' => (strpos($strBody, $strFullTag, $intOffset)), 'end' => (strpos($strBody, $strFullTag, $intOffset) + strlen($strFullTag)));
        $intOffset += strlen($strFullTag);
        $intIndex++;
      }
      return $intTagPositions;
    }
    $strBody = 'I have lots of <a href="http://my.site.com">links</a> on this <a href="http://my.site.com">page</a> that I want to <a href="http://my.site.com">find</a> the positions.';
    $strBody = strip_tags(html_entity_decode($strBody), '<a>');
    $intTagPositions = getTagPositions($strBody);
    print_r($intTagPositions);
    /*****
    Output:
    Array ( 
      [0] => Array ( 
        [start] => 15 
        [end] => 53 ) 
      [1] => Array ( 
        [start] => 62 
        [end] => 99 ) 
      [2] => Array ( 
        [start] => 115 
        [end] => 152 )
     ) 
    *****/
    ?>
    
    To count str_length in UTF-8 string i use
    $count = preg_match_all("/[[:print:]\pL]/u", $str, $pockets);
    where
    [:print:] - printing characters, including space
    \pL - UTF-8 Letter
    /u - UTF-8 string
    other unicode character properties on http://www.pcre.org/pcre.txt
    Here is a way to match everything on the page, performing an action for each match as you go. I had used this idiom in other languages, where its use is customary, but in PHP it seems to be not quite as common.
    <?php
    function custom_preg_match_all($pattern, $subject)
    {
      $offset = 0;
      $match_count = 0;
      while(preg_match($pattern, $subject, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE, $offset))
      {
        // Increment counter
        $match_count++;
      
        // Get byte offset and byte length (assuming single byte encoded)
        $match_start = $matches[0][1];
        $match_length = strlen(matches[0][0]);
        // (Optional) Transform $matches to the format it is usually set as (without PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE set)
        foreach($matches as $k => $match) $newmatches[$k] = $match[0];
        $matches = $new_matches;
      
        // Your code here
        echo "Match number $match_count, at byte offset $match_start, $match_length bytes long: ".$matches[0]."\r\n";
          
        // Update offset to the end of the match
        $offset = $match_start + $match_length;
      }
      return $match_count;
    }
    ?>
    Note that the offsets returned are byte values (not necessarily number of characters) so you'll have to make sure the data is single-byte encoded. (Or have a look at paolo mosna's strByte function on the strlen manual page).
    I'd be interested to know how this method performs speedwise against using preg_match_all and then recursing through the results.
    i have made up a simple function to extract a number from a string..
    I am not sure how good it is, but it works.
    It gets only the numbers 0-9, the "-", " ", "(", ")", "."
    characters.. This is as far as I know the most widely used characters for a Phone number.
    <?php
    function clean_phone_number($phone) {
        if (!empty($phone)) {
            //var_dump($phone);
            preg_match_all('/[0-9\(\)+.\- ]/s', $phone, $cleaned);
            foreach($cleaned[0] as $k=>$v) {
                $ready .= $v;
            }
            var_dump($ready);
            die;
            if (mb_strlen($cleaned) > 4 && mb_strlen($cleaned) <=25) {
                return $cleaned;
            }
            else {
                return false;
            }
        }
        return false;
    }
    ?>
    
    please note, that the function of "mail at SPAMBUSTER at milianw dot de" can result in invalid xhtml in some cases. think i used it in the right way but my result is sth like this:
    <img src="./img.jpg" alt="nice picture" />foo foo foo foo </img>
    correct me if i'm wrong. 
    i'll see when there's time to fix that. -.-
    If you'd like to include DOUBLE QUOTES on a regular expression for use with preg_match_all, try ESCAPING THRICE, as in: \\\"
    For example, the pattern:
    '/<table>[\s\w\/<>=\\\"]*<\/table>/'
    Should be able to match:
    <table>
    <row>
    <col align="left" valign="top">a</col>
    <col align="right" valign="bottom">b</col>
    </row>
    </table>
    .. with all there is under those table tags.
    I'm not really sure why this is so, but I tried just the double quote and one or even two escape characters and it won't work. In my frustration I added another one and then it's cool.
    when regex is for longer and shorter version of a string,
    only one of that long and short versions is catched.
    when regex match occurs in one position of string,
    only one match is saved in matches[0] for that position.
    if ? is used, regex is greedy, and catches more long version,
    if | is used, most first matching variant is catched:
    <?php
    preg_match_all('/ab|abc/','abc',$m);
    var_dump($m);
    preg_match_all('/abc?/','abc',$m);
    var_dump($m);
    ?>
    ['ab', 'abc'] in $m[0] for both can be expected, but it is not so,
    actually they output [['ab']] and [['abc']]:
    array(1) {
     [0]=>
     array(1) {
      [0]=>
      string(2) "ab"
     }
    }
    array(1) {
     [0]=>
     array(1) {
      [0]=>
      string(3) "abc"
     }
    }
    I had been crafting and testing some regexp patterns online using the tools Regex101 and a `preg_match_all()` tester and found that the regexp patterns I wrote worked fine on them, just not in my code.
    My problem was not double-escaping backslash characters:
    <?php
    // Input test
    $input = "\"something\",\"something here\",\"some\nnew\nlines\",\"this is the end\"";
    // Work with online regexp testers, doesn't work in PHP
    preg_match_all( "/(?:,|^)(?<!\\)\".*?(?<!\\)\"(?:(?=,)|$)/s", $input, $matches );
    /*
    Outputs: NULL
    */
    // Works with online regexp testers, does work in PHP
    preg_match_all( "/(?:,|^)(?<!\\\\)\".*?(?<!\\\\)\"(?:(?=,)|$)/s", $input, $matches );
    /*
    Outputs:
    array(2) {
     [0]=>
     array(4) {
      [0]=>
      string(11) ""something""
      [1]=>
      string(17) ","something here""
      [2]=>
      string(17) ","some
    new
    lines""
      [3]=>
      string(18) ","this is the end""
     }
     [1]=>
     array(4) {
      [0]=>
      string(9) "something"
      [1]=>
      string(14) "something here"
      [2]=>
      string(14) "some
    new
    lines"
      [3]=>
      string(15) "this is the end"
     }
    }
    */
    ?>
    
    Here http://tryphpregex.com/ is a php based online regex editor which helps you test your regular expressions with real-time highlighting of regex match on data input.
    As I intended to create for my own purpose a clean PHP class to act on XML files, combining the use of DOM and simplexml functions, I had that small problem, but very annoying, that the offsets in a path is not numbered the same in both. 
    That is to say, for example, if i get a DOM xpath object it appears like:
    /ANODE/ANOTHERNODE/SOMENODE[9]/NODE[2]
    and as a simplexml object would be equivalent to:
    ANODE->ANOTHERNODE->SOMENODE[8]->NODE[1]
    So u see what I mean? I used preg_match_all to solve that problem, and finally I got this after some hours of headlock (as I'm french the names of variables are in French sorry), hoping it could be useful to some of you:
    <?php
    function decrease_string($string)
      {
        /* retrieve all occurrences AND offsets of numbers in the original string: */
        preg_match_all("/[0-9]+/",$chaine,$out,PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE);
          for($i=0;$i<sizeof($out[0]);$i++)
          {
            $longueurnombre = strlen((string)$out[0][$i][0]);
            $taillechaine = strlen($chaine);
            // cut the string in 3 pieces
            $debut = substr($chaine,0,$out[0][$i][1]);
            $milieu = ($out[0][$i][0])-1;
            $fin = substr($chaine,$out[0][$i][1]+$longueurnombre,$taillechaine);
             /* if it's 10,100,1000, the problem is that the string gets shorter and it shifts all the offsets, so we have to decrease them of 1 */
             if(preg_match('#[1][0]+$#', $out[0][$i][0]))
             {
              for($j = $i+1;$j<sizeof($out[0]);$j++)
              {
                $out[0][$j][1] = $out[0][$j][1] -1;
              }
             }
            $chaine = $debut.$milieu.$fin;
          }
        return $chaine;
      }
    ?>
    
    Better use preg_replace to convert text in a clickable link with tag <a> 
    $html = preg_replace('"\b(http://\S+)"', '<a href="$1">$1</a>', $text);
    I have received complains, that my html2a() code (see below) doesn't work in some cases. 
    It is however not the problem with algorithm or procedure, but with PCRE recursive stack limits.
    If you use recursive PCRE (?R) you should remember to increase those two ini settings:
    ini_set('pcre.backtrack_limit', 10000000);
    ini_set('pcre.recursion_limit', 10000000);
    But be warned: (from php.ini)
    ;Please note that if you set this value to a high number you may consume all
    ;the available process stack and eventually crash PHP (due to reaching the
    ;stack size limit imposed by the Operating System).
    I have written this example mainly to demonstrate the power of PCRE LANGUAGE, not the power of it's implementation :) 
    But if you like it, use it, of course on your own risk.
    Using preg_match_all I made a pretty handy function.
    <?php
    function reg_smart_replace($pattern, $replacement, $subject, $replacementChar = "$$$", $limit = -1)
    {
      if (! $pattern || ! $subject || ! $replacement ) { return false; }
      
      $replacementChar = preg_quote($replacementChar);
      
      preg_match_all ( $pattern, $subject, $matches);
      
      if ($limit > -1) {
        foreach ($matches as $count => $value )
        {
          if ($count + 1 > $limit ) { unset($matches[$count]); }
        }
      }
      foreach ($matches[0] as $match) {
        $rep = ereg_replace($replacementChar, $match, $replacement);
        $subject = ereg_replace($match, $rep, $subject);
      }
      
      return $subject;
    }
    ?>
    This function can turn blocks of text into clickable links or whatever. Example:
    <?php
    reg_smart_replace(EMAIL_REGEX, '<a href="mailto:$$$">$$$</a>', $description)
    ?>
    will turn all email addresses into actual links.
    Just substitute $$$ with the text that will be found by the regex. If you can't use $$$ then use the 4th parameter $replacementChar
    Extract fields out of csv string : ( since before php5.3 you can't use str_getcsv function ) 
    Here is the regex :
    <?php
    $csvData = <<<EOF
    10,'20',"30","'40","'50'","\"60","70,80","09\\/18,/\"2011",'a,sdfcd'
    EOF
    $reg = <<<EOF
    /
      (
        (
          ([\'\"])
          (
            ( 
            [^\'\"]
            |
            (\\\\.)
            )*
          )
          (\\3)
          |
          (
            [^,]
            |
            (\\\\.)
          )*
      ),)
      /x
    EOF;
    preg_match_all($reg,$csvData,$matches);
    // to extract csv fields
    print_r($matches[2]);
    ?>
    
    <?php
    // Returns an array of strings where the start and end are found
      function findinside($start, $end, $string) {
        preg_match_all('/' . preg_quote($start, '/') . '([^\.)]+)'. preg_quote($end, '/').'/i', $string, $m);
        return $m[1];
      }
      
      $start = "mary has";
      $end = "lambs.";
      $string = "mary has 6 lambs. phil has 13 lambs. mary stole phil's lambs. now mary has all the lambs.";
      $out = findinside($start, $end, $string);
      print_r ($out);
    /* Results in 
    (
      [0] => 6 
      [1] => all the 
    )
    */ 
    ?>
    
    The power of pregs is limited only by your *imagination* :)
    I wrote this html2a() function using preg recursive match (?R) which provides quite safe and bulletproof html/xml extraction:
    <?php
    function html2a ( $html ) {
     if ( !preg_match_all( '
    @
    \<\s*?(\w+)((?:\b(?:\'[^\']*\'|"[^"]*"|[^\>])*)?)\>
    ((?:(?>[^\<]*)|(?R))*)
    \<\/\s*?\\1(?:\b[^\>]*)?\>
    |\<\s*(\w+)(\b(?:\'[^\']*\'|"[^"]*"|[^\>])*)?\/?\>
    @uxis', $html = trim($html), $m, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE | PREG_SET_ORDER) )
      return $html;
     $i = 0;
     $ret = array();
     foreach ($m as $set) {
      if ( strlen( $val = trim( substr($html, $i, $set[0][1] - $i) ) ) )
       $ret[] = $val;
      $val = $set[1][1] < 0 
       ? array( 'tag' => strtolower($set[4][0]) )
       : array( 'tag' => strtolower($set[1][0]), 'val' => html2a($set[3][0]) );
      if ( preg_match_all( '
    /(\w+)\s*(?:=\s*(?:"([^"]*)"|\'([^\']*)\'|(\w+)))?/usix
    ', isset($set[5]) && $set[2][1] < 0
     ? $set[5][0]
     : $set[2][0]
     ,$attrs, PREG_SET_ORDER ) ) {
       foreach ($attrs as $a) {
        $val['attr'][$a[1]]=$a[count($a)-1];
       }
      }
      $ret[] = $val;
      $i = $set[0][1]+strlen( $set[0][0] );
     }
     $l = strlen($html);
     if ( $i < $l )
      if ( strlen( $val = trim( substr( $html, $i, $l - $i ) ) ) )
       $ret[] = $val;
     return $ret;
    }
    ?>
    Now let's try it with this example: (there are some really nasty xhtml compliant bugs, but ... we shouldn't worry)
    <?php
    $html = <<<EOT
    some leftover text...
       < DIV class=noCompliant style = "text-align:left;" >
    ... and some other ...
    < dIv > < empty> </ empty>
     <p> This is yet another text <br >
       that wasn't <b>compliant</b> too... <br  />
       </p>
     <div class="noClass" > this one is better but we don't care anyway </div><P>
      <input  type= "text" name ='my "name' value = "nothin really." readonly>
    end of paragraph </p> </Div>  </div>  some trailing text 
    EOT;
    $a = html2a($html);
    //now we will make some neat html out of it
    echo a2html($a);
    function a2html ( $a, $in = "" ) {
     if ( is_array($a) ) {
      $s = "";
      foreach ($a as $t)
       if ( is_array($t) ) {
        $attrs=""; 
        if ( isset($t['attr']) )
         foreach( $t['attr'] as $k => $v )
          $attrs.=" ${k}=".( strpos( $v, '"' )!==false ? "'$v'" : "\"$v\"" );
        $s.= $in."<".$t['tag'].$attrs.( isset( $t['val'] ) ? ">\n".a2html( $t['val'], $in." " ).$in."</".$t['tag'] : "/" ).">\n";
       } else
        $s.= $in.$t."\n";
     } else {
      $s = empty($a) ? "" : $in.$a."\n";
     }
     return $s;
    }
    ?>
    This produces:
    some leftover text...
    <div class="noCompliant" style="text-align:left;">
     ... and some other ...
     <div>
      <empty>
      </empty>
      <p>
       This is yet another text
       <br/>
       that wasn't
       <b>
        compliant
       </b>
       too...
       <br/>
      </p>
      <div class="noClass">
       this one is better but we don't care anyway
      </div>
      <p>
       <input type="text" name='my "name' value="nothin really." readonly="readonly"/>
       end of paragraph
      </p>
     </div>
    </div>
    some trailing text
    This is very useful to combine matches:
    $a = array_combine($matches[1], $matches[2]);
    // Here is function that allows you to preg_match_all array of patters
    function getMatches($pattern, $subject) {
      $matches = array();
      if (is_array($pattern)) {
        foreach ($pattern as $p) {
          $m = getMatches($p, $subject);
          foreach ($m as $key => $match) {
            if (isset($matches[$key])) {
              $matches[$key] = array_merge($matches[$key], $m[$key]);  
            } else {
              $matches[$key] = $m[$key];
            }
          }
        }
      } else {
        preg_match_all($pattern, $subject, $matches);
      }
      return $matches;
    }
    $patterns = array(
      '/<span>(.*?)<\/span>/',
      '/<a href=".*?">(.*?)<\/a>/'
    );
    $html = '<span>some text</span>';
    $html .= '<span>some text in another span</span>';
    $html .= '<a href="path/">here is the link</a>';
    $html .= '<address>address is here</address>';
    $html .= '<span>here is one more span</span>';
    $matches = getMatches($patterns, $html);
    print_r($matches); // result is below
    /*
    Array
    (
      [0] => Array
        (
          [0] => <span>some text</span>
          [1] => <span>some text in another span</span>
          [2] => <span>here is one more span</span>
          [3] => <a href="path/">here is the link</a>
        )
      [1] => Array
        (
          [0] => some text
          [1] => some text in another span
          [2] => here is one more span
          [3] => here is the link
        )
    )
    */
    The next function works with almost any complex xml/xhtml string
    <?php
    /**
    * Find and close unclosed xml tags
    **/
    function close_tags($text) {
      $patt_open  = "%((?<!</)(?<=<)[\s]*[^/!>\s]+(?=>|[\s]+[^>]*[^/]>)(?!/>))%";
      $patt_close  = "%((?<=</)([^>]+)(?=>))%";
      if (preg_match_all($patt_open,$text,$matches))
      {
        $m_open = $matches[1];
        if(!empty($m_open))
        {
          preg_match_all($patt_close,$text,$matches2);
          $m_close = $matches2[1];
          if (count($m_open) > count($m_close))
          {
            $m_open = array_reverse($m_open);
            foreach ($m_close as $tag) $c_tags[$tag]++;
            foreach ($m_open as $k => $tag)  if ($c_tags[$tag]--<=0) $text.='</'.$tag.'>';
          }
        }
      }
      return $text;
    }
    ?>
    

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