Question

I need to save the number between every pair of curly brackets as a variable.

{2343} -> $number
echo $number;
Output = 2343

I don’t know how to do the ‘->’ part.

I’ve found a similar function, but it simply removes the curly brackets and does nothing else.

preg_replace('#{([0-9]+)}#','$1', $string);

Is there any function I can use?

Answer 1

You’ll probably want to use preg_match with a capture:

$subject = "{2343}";
$pattern = '/\{(\d+)\}/';
preg_match($pattern, $subject, $matches);
print_r($matches);

Output:

Array
(
    [0] => {2343}
    [1] => 2343
)

The $matches array will contain the result at index 1 if it is found, so:

if(!empty($matches) && isset($matches[1)){
    $number = $matches[1];
}

If your input string can contain many numbers, then use preg_match_all:

$subject = "{123} {456}";
$pattern = '/\{(\d+)\}/';
preg_match_all($pattern, $subject, $matches);
print_r($matches);

Output:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => {123}
            [1] => {456}
        )

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