I need some help with a RegEx. The concept is simple, but the actual

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Asked: June 7, 20262026-06-07T08:37:15+00:00 2026-06-07T08:37:15+00:00

I need some help with a RegEx. The concept is simple, but the actual

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I need some help with a RegEx. The concept is simple, but the actual solution is well beyond anything I know how to figure out. If anyone could explain how I could achieve my desired effect (and provide an explanation with any example code) it’d be much appreciated!

Basically, imagine a database table that stores the following string:

'My name is $1. I wonder who $2 is.'

First, bear in mind that the dollar sign-number format IS set in stone. That’s not just for this example–that’s how these wildcards will actually be stored. I would like an input like the following to be able to return the above string.

'My name is John. I wonder who Sarah is.'

How would I create a query that searches with wildcards in this format, and then returns the applicable rows? I imagine a regular expression would be the best way. Bear in mind that, theoretically, any number of wildcards should be acceptable.

Right now, this is the part of my existing query that drags the content out of the database. The concatenation, et cetera, is there because in a single database cell, there are multiple strings concatenated by a vertical bar.

AND CONCAT('|', content, '|')
    LIKE CONCAT('%|', '" . mysql_real_escape_string($in) . "', '|%')

I need to modify ^this line to work with the variables that are a part of the query, while keeping the current effect (vertical bars, etc) in place. If the RegEx also takes into account the bars, then the CONCAT() functions can be removed.

Here is an example string with concatenation as it might appear in the database:

Hello, my name is $1.|Hello, I'm $1.|$1 is my name!

The query should be able to match with any of those chunks in the string, and then return that row if there is a match. The variables $1 should be treated as wildcards. Vertical bars will always delimit chunks.