Question

I want to know how regex patterns are written. Where is their base and what do I need to know in order to write patterns. I have absolutely no idea on how to write my own patterns and I am quite in a need of finding a particular match in some of my code.

Is this some math based subject? Give me all possible information about patterns please 🙂

Answer 1

I would say you need to read the PCRE Patterns section of the manual — and, more specificaly, the Pattern Syntax sub-section 😉

Pretty much everything about PCRE is in there¹.

Considering that PCRE are, afterall, Perl-Compatible Regular Expressions, you might also want to read some Perl-related documentation ; for exemple : perlre.

^1. _{Well, once again, the PHP manual is so great, it wasn’t possible to not link to it…}