Question

I have the following regex:

\[([^ -\]]+)( - ([^ -\]]+))+\]

This match the following successfully:

[abc - def - ghi - jkl]

BUT the match is:

Array
(
    [0] => [abc - def - ghi - jkl]
    [1] => abc
    [2] =>  - jkl
    [3] => jkl
)

What I need is something like this:

Array
(
    [0] => [abc - def - ghi - jkl]
    [1] => abc
    [2] =>  - def
    [3] => def
    [4] =>  - ghi
    [5] => ghi
    [6] =>  - jkl
    [7] => jkl
)

I’m able to do that in C# looking at the groups “captures”. How can I do that in PHP?

Answer 1

This is not the job for the regexp. Match against \[([^\]]*)\], then explode the first capture by the " - ".

<?php                                                                       
  $str = "[abc - def - ghi - jkl]";
  preg_match('/\[([^\]]*)\]/', $str, $re);
  $strs = explode(' - ', $re[1]);
  print_r($strs);
?>