How to extract multiple values from a string to call an array? - php

Question

I want to extract values from a string to call an array for basic template functionality:
$string = '... #these.are.words-I_want.to.extract# ...';
$output = preg_replace_callback('~\#([\w-]+)(\.([\w-]+))*\#~', function($matches) {
print_r($matches);
// Replace matches with array value: $these['are']['words-I_want']['to']['extract']
}, $string);
This gives me:
Array
(
[0] => #these.are.words-I_want.to.extract#
[1] => these
[2] => .extract
[3] => extract
)
But I'd like:
Array
(
[0] => #these.are.words-I_want.to.extract#
[1] => these
[2] => are
[3] => words-I_want
[4] => to
[5] => extract
)
Which changes do I need to make to my regex?

Answer 1

It seems that the words are simply dot separated, so match sequences of what you don't want:
preg_replace_callback('/[^#.]+/', function($match) {
// ...
}, $str);
Should give the expected results.
However, if the # characters are the boundary of where the matching should take place, you would need a separate match and then use a simple explode() inside:
preg_replace_callback('/#(.*?)#/', function($match) {
$parts = explode('.', $match[1]);
// ...
}, $str);

Answer 2

You can use array_merge() function to merge the two resulting arrays:
$string = '... #these.are.words-I_want.to.extract# ...';
$result = array();
if (preg_match('~#([^#]+)#~', $string, $m)) {
$result[] = $m[0];
$result = array_merge($result, explode('.', $m[1]));
}
print_r($result);
Output:
Array
(
[0] => #these.are.words-I_want.to.extract#
[1] => these
[2] => are
[3] => words-I_want
[4] => to
[5] => extract
)