[RESOLVED] Simple Regular Expression Problem! Plz Help!

[Paul_help_]

Hi Guys.

Can you take a look at this code (below):

$text = "Call Mary on 499 012 3456, John on 876 543 2101, or Karen: 777 111 2345";


echo preg_match_all( "/\b\d{3} \d{3} \d{4}\b/", $text, $matches ) . "<br>";




$stuff = "here are some numbers: 2340 093 22";

echo preg_match_all( "/\b\d{4} \d{3} \d{2}\b/", $stuff, $array ) . "<br>";

I am totally confused by this. Obviously, you all know what 'preg_match_all()' does.
What I need to know is,, why does the first echo statement work, and second echo statement doesn't work?

The second echo statement should clearly match '3', but it only echo's '1'.

Totally confused by this!!

[dalecosp]

I'm not sure that any of that "works" ... [man]preg_match_all/man returns an int, so "1" indicates success (something was matched), and anything else indicates a failure to match.

The results are in the array $matches for the first example, and $array for the second.

Running this in The Regex Coach, I don't find any matches anyway ... I think for correctness you need the whitespace char class (\s) in there:

$regex = "%\b\d{3}\s\d{3}\s\d{4}\b%";  // I used '%' for the delimiter instead of a 'backslash'

$text = "Call Mary on 499 012 3456, John on 876 543 2101, or Karen: 777 111 2345";

preg_match_all("/\b\d{3} \d{3} \d{4}\b/", $text, $matches);

print_r($matches);

That gets 'em for me.

[Weedpacket]

Well, the second test returns a 1 because there is one match for the pattern in the given string. The first returns 3 because there are three matches.

[Paul_help_]

Thanks Brothers.

I see where I am going wrong now.