Question

If I have a string like: 10/10/12/12

I’m using:

$string = '10/10/12/12';
preg_match_all('/[0-9]+\/[0-9]+/', $string, $results);

This only seems to match 10/10, and 12/12. I also want to match 10/12. Is it because after the 10/10 is matched that is removed from the picture? So after the first match it’ll only match things from /12/12?

If I want to match all 10/10, 10/12, 12/12, what should my regex look like? Thanks.

Edit: I did this

$arr = explode('/', $string);
$count = count($arr) - 1;
$newarr = array();
for ($i = 0; $i < $count; $i++)
{
    $newarr[] = $arr[$i].'/'.$arr[$i+1];
}

Answer 1

I’d advise not using regular expression. Instead you could for example first split on slash using explode. Then iterate over the parts, checking for two consecutive parts which both consist of only digits.

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The reason why your regular expression doesn’t work is because the match consumes the characters it matches. Searching for the next match starts from just after where the previous match ended.

If you really want to use regular expressions you can use a zero-width match such as a lookahead to avoid consuming the characters, and put a capturing match inside the lookahead.

'#[0-9]+/(?=([0-9]+))#'

See it working online: ideone