Question

I need help writing regular experssion that will match phone numbers in some data. Somin the following format:

XXX-XXX-XXXX
XXX-XXX-XXXX Ext. XXX
XXX-XXX-XXXX Ext. XXXX
(XXX) XXX-XXXX
XXX-XXX-XXXX (Text)
XXX.XXX.XXXX

and one regexp specifically for this line:

XXX-XXX-XXXX (Text & Special Chars.); XXX-XXX-XXXX (Text)

I’ve searched through several questions and tried the general 0-9 match but to no avail so far. I also tried this more recently to fetch normal phone numbers:

preg_match_all('/^((\(\d{3}\) ?)|(\d{3}-))?\d{3}-\d{4}$/', $a3, $n);

print_r($n);

Can someone show me the right way? Thanks

Answer 1

This pattern will match the examples you provided in any text.

((?:\d{3}[.-]|\(\d{3}\)\s+)\d{3}[.-]\d{4})(?:\s+Ext\.\s+(\d+)|\s+\(.*?\))?

If you can provide some sample data or explain in more detail what the subject looks like the pattern can likely be improved. For example, are all the numbers on a separate lines (like your pattern would suggest) or are they part of a text?

---

Example script, and the pattern explained:

$string = <<<EOT
123-456-7890

    123-456-7890 Ext. 321
123-456-7890 Ext. 4321
[phone]
lorem ipsum
123-456-7890 (Text)
123.456.7890
foo bar baz
EOT;

//preg_match_all("/((?:\d{3}[.-]|\(\d{3}\)\s+)\d{3}[.-]\d{4})(?:\s+Ext\.\s+(\d+)|\s+\(.*?\))?/i", $string, $matches);
preg_match_all("/
               (                        # open capturing group to hold the phone number
                   (?:                  # open non-capturing group
                       \d{3}[.-]        # match 3 digits followed by a . or -
                       |                # OR, if the previous part of this group did not match
                       \(\d{3}\)\s+     # match 3 digits between parentheses folowed by one or more spaces
                   )                    # close non-capturing group
                   \d{3}[.-]            # match 3 digits followed by a . or -
                   \d{4}                # match 4 digits
               )                        # close capturing group
               (?:                      # open non-capturing group
                   \s+Ext\.\s+          # one or more spaces followed by Ext. followed by one or more spaces
                   (                    # open capturing group to hold the extension number
                       \d+              # match one or more digits
                   )                    # close capturing group
                   |                    # OR, if the previous part of this non-capturing group did not match
                   \s+\(.*?\)           # one or more spaces and then anything, except newline, between (the smallest) pair of parentheses
               )?                       # close non-capturing group, the ? makes the whole non-capturing group optional
               /ix", $string, $matches);# the i flag makes the matches case insensitive and x allows for the comments and spacing

echo "<pre>\n";
print_r($matches);

output:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => 123-456-7890
            [1] => 123-456-7890 Ext. 321
            [2] => 123-456-7890 Ext. 4321
            [3] => [phone]
            [4] => 123-456-7890 (Text)
            [5] => 123.456.7890
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [0] => 123-456-7890
            [1] => 123-456-7890
            [2] => 123-456-7890
            [3] => [phone]
            [4] => 123-456-7890
            [5] => 123.456.7890
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [0] => 
            [1] => 321
            [2] => 4321
            [3] => 
            [4] => 
            [5] => 
        )

)

---

and for the other line, the pattern above will also match that one, but if you do need it here it is

$string = "123-456-7890 (Text & Special Chars.); 123-456-7890 (Text)";

preg_match_all("/(\d{3}[.-]\d{3}[.-]\d{4})\s+\(.*\);\s+(\d{3}[.-]\d{3}[.-]\d{4})\s+\(.*?\)/i", $string, $matches);

echo "<pre>\n";
print_r($matches);

output:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => 123-456-7890 (Text & Special Chars.); 123-456-7890 (Text)
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [0] => 123-456-7890
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [0] => 123-456-7890
        )

)