Question

I have the following code:

 <?php
        $data="000ffe-fcc9f4 1 000fbe-fccabe";
        $pattern='/([0-9A-F]{6})-([0-9A-F]{6})$/i';
        echo "the pattern we are using is: ".$pattern."<BR>";

        preg_match_all($pattern,$data,$matches, PREG_SET_ORDER );

        print_r($matches[0]);

?>

I don’t understand why it’s not finding both mac addresses as matches.

Here’s what the output on the page looks like:

the pattern we are using is: /([0-9A-F]{6})-([0-9A-F]{6})$/i
Array ( [0] => 000fbe-fccabe [1] => 000fbe [2] => fccabe ) 

I was expecting that element [0] would contain both 000ffe-fcc9f4 and 000fbe-fccabe.
Can you tell me what I’m doing wrong?

Thanks.

Answer 1

The reason it isn’t finding both is because you have a $ at the end of your regex which means it will only match that pattern at the end of the string.

Try changing $pattern to /([0-9A-F]{6})-([0-9A-F]{6})/i and that should match both.