Getting back the right amount of matches

I have a simple problem, but I've had a hard time find a simple and effective solution to it.

Since I didn't have any success with way I posted what I need to solve the first and the second times, I am going to try it a third time with a more direct question.

After searching the web, I found a solution to dealing with German and French characters, but the underlying problem with the matches I get is the same.
I simplified the script, so that anyone can try it out.

<?php

$lines=array("Ich weiß wirklich nicht, womit er prahlt!: I really
don't know what he's bragging of!","Worüber hat er gesprochen?: what
did he talked about?");

foreach($lines as $line){
preg_match_all('/b([A-Za-zäöüÖÄÜßs.,'!?])+([A-Za-
zs.;'-!?]+)/',$line,$lines1,PREG_PATTERN_ORDER);
echo 'results = '.$lines1[0][0].'<BR>';
}
?>


From preg_match_all I only get two matches:
results = Ich wei� wirklich nicht, womit er prahlt!
results = Wor�ber hat er gesprochen?

But from https://regexr.com/ and https://regex101.com/ I get four matches with the same regular expression.

Ich weiß wirklich nicht, womit er prahlt!
I really don't know what he's bragging of!
Worüber hat er gesprochen?
what did he talked about?

Does anyone know why there's this discrepancy? How can I get four matches with preg_match_all instead of only two?

Thanks in advance.

- er macht | er machte | er hat gemacht;

wei?

u

a-zA-Z

p{L}

1 Answer
1

If the strings are all separated by the ":" it's really no need to match by the characters. Use your regex to grab the left side and the right side of the ":" regarding of what they are. This works fine on the test-strings you've provided.

$lines=array(
"Ich weiß wirklich nicht, womit er prahlt!: I really don't know what he's bragging of!",
"Worüber hat er gesprochen?: what did he talked about?"
);

$allItems=array();
$pattern = '/(.*?):s?(.*?$)/s';
foreach($lines as $line){
preg_match_all($pattern, $line, $result, PREG_PATTERN_ORDER);
array_push($allItems, $result[1][0], $result[2][0]);
}

print_r($allItems);


OUTPUT

Array ( [0] => Ich weiß wirklich nicht, womit er prahlt! [1] => I really don't know what he's bragging of! [2] => Worüber hat er gesprochen? [3] => what did he talked about? )


EDIT

For this specific scenario you could omit the use of regex alltogether by instead simply using this, the resulting output would be the same:

$lines=array(
"Ich weiß wirklich nicht, womit er prahlt!: I really don't know what he's bragging of!",
"Worüber hat er gesprochen?: what did he talked about?"
);

$allItems=array();
foreach($lines as $line){
$values = explode(": ", $line);
array_push($allItems, $values[0], $values[1]);
}

print_r($allItems);


I'd prefer to go with this last, but you also said you had other types of strings so it'd probably be best in that case to keep the regex-way if the other string types would just need a pattern-modification to work.

By clicking "Post Your Answer", you acknowledge that you have read our updated terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy, and that your continued use of the website is subject to these policies.