Regex Help

[pianoparadise]

I have a sentence (sometimes many sentences separated by line breaks) that I want to split up into individual words and put into an array. Here is my code so far, but it won't match the example $sentence. I think the problem is in my regex. As of right now, this program only gets single characters.

$sentence = "how are you 


doing today?";

$singleWordRegex = '#[A-Za-z]+#sU';
preg_match_all($singleWordRegex, $sentence, $singleWordArray);

[NogDog]

You want to lose the "U" modifier, as you want the "+" to be "greedy".

A more direct way might be to use preg_split():

$singleWordArray = preg_split('/[^a-z]+/i', $sentence, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);

[bradgrafelman]

It's only getting single characters being you used the un-greedy ('U') modifier, so the '+' will match as few characters as possible.

Also note that you could use the 'i' modifier to make the search case-insensitive instead of listing both upper- and lower-case ranges in the character class.

EDIT: Too slow! :p

[pianoparadise]

Thanks for the help guys!
What if I wanted to get every adjacent two word combination, like

would the regex be this?
$doubleWordRegex = '#[^{A-Za-z]+\s[A-Za-z]+#';}

[NogDog]

You would not want the negation "^" in the first character class. Depending on the intended use, you might also need to account for punctuation characters.

[pianoparadise]

I tried this:

$sentence = "How are you doing today? I am doing fine, why thank you.";
preg_match_all('#[a-z]+\s[a-z]+#i', $sentence, $doubleWordArray);
var_dump($doubleWordArray);

The results were:
array(1) { [0]=> array(5) { [0]=> string(7) "How are" [1]=> string(11) "doing today" [2]=> string(4) "I am" [3]=> string(10) "doing fine" [4]=> string(9) "why thank" } }

I am trying to match every single adjacent two words (not separated by punctuation). I don't understand why "are you" and "you doing" do not match.
How would I fix the regex?

[jeremyphphaven]

Seriously, what am I missing here? You just want to get the words out the sentence right?

$sentence = "How are you doing today? I am doing fine, why thank you."; 
preg_match_all('/[a-z]+/i', $sentence, $string); 
var_dump($string);

/* RETURNS THIS:
array(1) { [0]=> array(12) { [0]=> string(3) "How" [1]=> string(3) "are" [2]=> string(3) "you" [3]=> string(5) "doing" [4]=> string(5) "today" [5]=> string(1) "I" [6]=> string(2) "am" [7]=> string(5) "doing" [8]=> string(4) "fine" [9]=> string(3) "why" [10]=> string(5) "thank" [11]=> string(3) "you" } }
*/ 

If you just want to break the words up based on spaces(this includes tabs and line breaks, check this:

$sentence = "How are you doing today? I am doing fine, why thank you."; 
preg_match_all('/[^[:space:]]+/i', $sentence, $string); 
var_dump($string); 

/* RETURNS THIS (with punctuations):
array(1) { [0]=> array(12) { [0]=> string(3) "How" [1]=> string(3) "are" [2]=> string(3) "you" [3]=> string(5) "doing" [4]=> string(6) "today?" [5]=> string(1) "I" [6]=> string(2) "am" [7]=> string(5) "doing" [8]=> string(5) "fine," [9]=> string(3) "why" [10]=> string(5) "thank" [11]=> string(4) "you." } }
*/

I admit, I may be missing something, but does this work for you???

[pianoparadise]

I already got that problem (splitting up a sentence into single words) resolved. Now I am trying to match two adjacent words at a time that are not separated by punctuation.

[jeremyphphaven]

haha, sorry my bad. will a word boudary work for you? Is this what you're looking for?

$sentence = "How are you doing today? I am doing fine, why thank you."; 
preg_match_all('/\b[a-z]+\s+[a-z]+\b/i', $sentence, $string); 
var_dump($string); 

returns:
array(1) { [0]=> array(5) { [0]=> string(7) "How are" [1]=> string(9) "you doing" [2]=> string(4) "I am" [3]=> string(10) "doing fine" [4]=> string(9) "why thank" } }

[jeremyphphaven]

oh... and if stuff is on multiple lines and what not, you may want to use the /m modifier also. Checkout - http://www.php.net/manual/en/reference.pcre.pattern.modifiers.php

[pianoparadise]

I want the matches to be:

How are
are you
you doing
doing today
I am
am doing
doing fine
why thank
thank you

What regex would I use for that?

[jeremyphphaven]

Try to google some regex tutorials.

[pianoparadise]

Already done that... that's why I'm asking for help to something particular, namely why my regex for adjacent words isn't working.

[pianoparadise]

I am bumping this up because I still haven't figured out how to make two adjacent words match. Can anyone help?