Question

How can I match “Any Group” repeated as “ANY GROUP” or “ANYGROUP”

$string = "Foo Bar (Any Group - ANY GROUP Baz)
           Foo Bar (Any Group - ANYGROUP Baz)";

so they return as “Foo Bar (Any Group – Baz)”

The separator would always be -

This post extends Regex/PHP Replace any repeating word group

This matches “Any Group – ANY GROUP” but not when repeated without blank.

$result = preg_replace(
    '%
    (                 # Match and capture
     (?:              # the following:...
      [\w/()]{1,30}   # 1-30 "word" characters
      [^\w/()]+       # 1 or more non-word characters
     ){1,4}           # 1 to 4 times
    )                 # End of capturing group 1
    ([ -]*)           # Match any number of intervening characters (space/dash)
    \1                # Match the same as the first group
    %ix',             # Case-insensitive, verbose regex
    '\1\2', $subject);

Answer 1

This is ugly (as I said it would be), but it should work:

$result = preg_replace(
    '/((\b\w+)\s+)               # One repeated word
    \s*-\s*
    \2
    |
    ((\b\w+)\s+(\w+)\s+)         # Two repeated words
    \s*-\s*
    \4\s*\5
    |
    ((\b\w+)\s+(\w+)\s+(\w+)\s+) # Three
    \s*-\s*
    \7\s*\8\s*\9
    |
    ((\b\w+)\s+(\w+)\s+(\w+)\s+(\w+)\s+)  # Four
    \s*-\s*
    \11\s*\12\s*\13\s*\14\b/ix', 
    '\1\3\6\10-', $subject);