Question

In PHP when i read the Data, lets say the data (chunk of string) is containing HTML Special Character DECIMAL HEX Codes like:
This is a sample string with < œ < and š

What i want is, how to Detect and Split out the Decimal Hex Codes (of any Special Characters) inside a chunk of string?

For example, above string contains:

• Two Count of <
• One Count of œ
• One Count of š

How can i programatically detect it (The OCCURRENCE for any Html Special Characters)?
(Collected results will be better as an Array)

Answer 1

I think this is what you are after:

$s = 'This is a sample string with œ and š';

$pattern = '/\&#x\d+\;/';

preg_match_all($pattern, $s, $matches);   

var_dump( $matches );

This will output:

array(1) {
  [0]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(7) "œ"
    [1]=>
    string(7) "š"
  }
}