Regex to find function call php

Question

I need the regex to find function calls in strings in php, I have tried to search here on stackoverflow but none of the ones i've tried worked.

this pattern: ^.*([\w][$].*[$])

This will match: functionone(fgfg) but also functionone(fgfg) dhgfghfgh functiontwo() as one match. Not 2 separate matches (as in functionone(fgfg) and functiontwo().

I don't know how to write it but I think this is what I need.
1. Any string, followed by (
2. Any string followed by )

And then it should stop, not continue. Any regex-gurus that can help me out?

Instead of .* which is greedy operator, try using .*?, which is lazy. — ddinchev, Mar 29 '12 at 08:19
see here : http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.get-defined-functions.php — xkeshav, Mar 29 '12 at 08:19
Have fun with $x = functionOne(functionTwo("fgfg")); and all the myriad of similar permutations — Mark Baker, Mar 29 '12 at 09:45

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 29 '12 at 08:18

5

Don't use regexp for this... use PHP's built-in tokenizer

answered Mar 29 '12 at 08:18

Mark Baker

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score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 29 '12 at 08:28

I see 5 issues with your regex

If you want to match 2 functions in the same row, don't use the anchor ^, this will anchor the regex to the start of the string.
You then don't need .* at the start maybe more something like \w+ (I am not sure what the spec of a function name in PHP is)
if there is only one entry in a character class (and its not a negated one), you don't need the character class
The quantifier between the brackets needs to be a lazy one (followed by a ?). So after this 4 points your regex would look something like
```
\w+$.*?$
```
Is a regex really the right tool for this job?

This actually worked, big thank you! But you are all right. Tokenizer would be a better alternative but it didn't find my functions as functions, but as html. — jocken, Mar 29 '12 at 12:09

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 29 '12 at 08:19

1

A function signature is not a regular language. As such, you cannot use a regular expression to match a function signature. Your current regex will match signatures that are NOT valid function signatures.

What I would suggest you use is the PHP tokenizer.

answered Mar 29 '12 at 08:19

Rohan Prabhu

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Valid point, invalid argument, [PCRE is not regular](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7434272/match-an-bn-cn-e-g-aaabbbccc-using-regular-expressions-pcre). – Qtax Mar 29 '12 at 08:22

Regex to find function call php

3 Answers3