Question

So basically I need to check if a string has 3 or more groups of separated digits, example:

words1 words2 111 222 333      //> YES, it has 3 groups of digits (separated by space)

words 1 2                      //> NO

words 2011 words2 2012 2013    //> YES

I was thinking something like

preg_match('/(\b\d+\b){3,}/',$string)

But it’s not working at all (always return false)

Thansk to @Basti i am using this regex now:

'/(\D*\d+\D*){3,}/'

Answer 1

Your regular expression is saying “Find one or more digits at least three times”. What you actually want is: “Find two or more digits surrounded by something I don’t care about at least three times.”:

preg_match("/(\D*\d{2,}\D*){3,}/", $string)

The problem with your expression is that you are not allowing anything other than digits and word bounds.

Test: var_dump(preg_match('/(\D*\d{2,}\D*){3,}/',$string, $match), $match); on your three strings.

int 1
array
  0 => string ' 111 222 333' (length=12)
  1 => string '333' (length=3)
int 0
array
  empty
int 1
array
  0 => string ' 2012 2013' (length=10)
  1 => string '13' (length=2)

---

yes123 note:

I am using this function I wrote, it can check for any numbers of groups:

function countDigits($haystack) {
    preg_match_all('/\b\d+\b/',$haystack,$matches);
    return count($matches[0]);
}

echo countDigits('2011 abc 2012'); //> prints 2