Regex Question

[Good2CU]

Will this work as intended? If not, please help 🙂

if (preg_match('#(step|food|box)[ -]?(van|truck)#', strtolower($model))

I'm trying to match to any of these combinations:
stepvan
step-van
step van
food truck
food van
box van
box truck

• The matched string doesn't need to be the sole string, beginning nor end, just "contains"
• I'm not really worried about multiple spaces or dashes or other characters in between the target words

(I have a feeling there's at least one thing wrong with this so that's why I'm posting here rather than spending tons of time testing and debugging something,)

Thanks in advance!

[NogDog]

Don't know that what you have is "wrong", but I might do it more like this, including letting the regex be case-insensitive versus converting it via the PHP function. Using word boundaries may help avoid strings you don't want to match, such as "junkfood vandals".

if(preg_match('#\b(step|food|box)\W*(truck|van)s?\b#i', $model)

That should match things like "stepvan", "step van", "step-vans", "step/van", or even "step -- vans". So it's up to you whether that "\W*" is too lenient, in which case you could change it to "\W?", perhaps.