Question

Hi how do I do a preg match on

$string1 = "[%refund%]processed_by"

$string2 = "[%refund%]date_sent"

I want to grab the bits inside %% and then remove the [%item%] altogether. leaving just the “proccessed_by” or “date_sent” I have had a go below but come a bit stuck.

$unprocessedString = "[%refund%]date_sent"

$match   =  preg_match('/^\[.+\]/', $unprocessedString);
$string  =  preg_replace('/^\[.+\]/', $unprocessedString);

echo $match; // this should output refund

echo $string; // this should output date_sent

Answer 1

Your problem is with your use of the preg_match function. It returns the number of matches found. But if you pass it a variable as a third parameter, it stores the matches for the entire pattern and its subpatterns in an array.

So you can capture both of the parts you want in subpatterns with preg_match, which means you don’t need preg_replace:

$unprocessedString = "[%refund%]date_sent"
preg_match('/^\[%(.+)%\](.+)/', $unprocessedString, $matches);
echo $matches[1]; // outputs 'refund'
echo $matches[2]; // outputs 'date_sent'