Extract string that begins with and ends with

Question

I would like to extract the following string <%MYSTRING123%> from the example string below

'sdfsdf sdfsdf fd<%MYSTRING123%>d12df fsdsgsg d'

I found this exact question has been asked already, so i tried their solution as below:

$input = 'sdfsdf sdfsdf fd<%MYSTRING123%>d12df fsdsgsg d';
preg_match_all('/\[<%MYSTRING\](.*?)\[%>\]/', $input, $matches);
var_dump($matches);

Output

array(2) {
  [0]=>
  array(0) {
  }
  [1]=>
  array(0) {
  }
}

Expected Output

array(1) {
  [0]=> '<%MYSTRING123%>'
}

Try this https://eval.in/799730 – Sahil Gulati May 18 '17 at 07:06 — Sahil Gulati, May 18 '17 at 07:06

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered May 18 '17 at 07:11

Since you are using preg_match_all() you will always get a 2-dimensional array. This will at least give you the content you are looking for:

/<%MYSTRING\d+%>/

PS: the \[ and \] in the topic you linked are part of their input ('BBCode'-tags). So these do not apply for your input.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 18 '17 at 07:11

Looking to your regex, it seems you need to be able to get <%MYSTRING-anynumber%>, right?

Try to change a bit your regex the following:

<?php
$input = 'sdfsdf sdfsdf fd<%MYSTRING123%>d12df fsdsgsg d';
preg_match_all('/\<%MYSTRING.*?%>/', $input, $matches);
var_dump($matches);

2 Answers2