preg_match_all with named subpatterns - php

Question

I can`t figure out the following expression:
preg_match_all('/[(?P<slug>\w+\-)\-(?P<flag>(m|t))\-(?P<id>\d+)]+/', $slugs, $matches);
My $slugs variable is something like this:
article-slug-one-m-111617/article-slug-two-t-111611/article-slug-three-t-111581/article-slug-four-m-111609/

Answer 1

Your expression looks like an attempt to split up the path elements into slug, flag and id parts. It fails as the brackets [ ... ] is used to match characters but here it seems to be used to keep things together, like parentheses. It also fails to get the slug part right, as it does not allow for more than one series of word \w and dash - characters. I.e. that part matches 'article-' but not 'article-slug-one-'.
Maybe this is what you want?
$slugs = 'article-slug-one-m-111617/article-slug-two-t-111611/article-slug-three-t-111581/article-slug-four-m-111609/';
preg_match_all('/(?P<slug>[\w-]+)\-(?P<flag>[mt])\-(?P<id>\d+)/', $slugs, $matches);
echo "First slug : " . $matches['slug'][0], PHP_EOL;
echo "Second flag: " . $matches['flag'][1], PHP_EOL;
echo "Third ID : " . $matches['id'][2], PHP_EOL;
print_r($matches);
Output:
First slug : article-slug-one
Second flag: t
Third ID : 111581
Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[0] => article-slug-one-m-111617
[1] => article-slug-two-t-111611
[2] => article-slug-three-t-111581
[3] => article-slug-four-m-111609
)
[slug] => Array
(
[0] => article-slug-one
[1] => article-slug-two
[2] => article-slug-three
[3] => article-slug-four
)
[1] => Array
(
[0] => article-slug-one
[1] => article-slug-two
[2] => article-slug-three
[3] => article-slug-four
)
[flag] => Array
(
[0] => m
[1] => t
[2] => t
[3] => m
)
[2] => Array
(
[0] => m
[1] => t
[2] => t
[3] => m
)
[id] => Array
(
[0] => 111617
[1] => 111611
[2] => 111581
[3] => 111609
)
[3] => Array
(
[0] => 111617
[1] => 111611
[2] => 111581
[3] => 111609
)
)