Question

How do I use preg_match to return an array of all substrings that match (:)?

For example if I have a string that is:

My name is (:name), my dog's name is (:dogname)

I want to use preg_match to return

array("name", "dogname");

I tried using this expression…

preg_match("/\(:(?P<var>\w+)\)/", $string, $temp);

But it only returns the first match.

Can anyone help me?

Answer 1

First off, you want preg_match_all (find all matches), not preg_match (check if there are any matches at all).

And for the actual regex, the best technique is to search for (: and then search for any character except for )

$string = "My name is (:name), my dog's name is (:dogname)";

$foundMatches = preg_match_all('/\(:([^)]+)\)/', $string, $matches);
$matches = $foundMatches ? $matches[1] : array(); // get all matches for the 1st set of parenthesis. or if there were no matches, just an empty array

var_dump($matches);