alternative to if(preg_match() and preg_match()) - php

Question

I want to know if we can replace if(preg_match('/boo/', $anything) and preg_match('/poo/', $anything))
with a regex..
$anything = 'I contain both boo and poo!!';
for example..

Answer 1

From what I understand of your question, you're looking for a way to check if BOTH 'poo' and 'boo' exist within a string using only one regex. I can't think of a more elegant way than this;
preg_match('/(boo.*poo)|(poo.*boo)/', $anything);
This is the only way I can think of to ensure both patterns exists within a string disregarding order. Of course, if you knew they were always supposed to be in the same order, that would make it more simple =]
EDIT
After reading through the post linked to by MisterJ in his answer, it would seem that a more simple regex could be;
preg_match('/(?=.*boo)(?=.*poo)/', $anything);

Answer 2

By using a pipe:
if(preg_match('/boo|poo/', $anything))

Answer 3

You can use the logical or as mentioned by #sroes:
if(preg_match('/(boo)|(poo)/,$anything)) the problem there is that you don't know which one matched.
In this one, you will match "I contain boo","I contain poo" and "I contain boo and poo".
If you want to only match "I contain boo and poo", the problem is really harder to figure out Regular Expressions: Is there an AND operator?
and it seems that you will have to stick with the php test.

Answer 4

To take conditions literally
if(preg_match('/[bp]oo.*[bp]oo/', $anything))

Answer 5

You can achieve this by altering your regular expression, as others have pointed out in other answers. However, if you want to use an array instead, so you do not have to list a long regex pattern, then use something like this:
// Default matches to false
$matches = false;
// Set the pattern array
$pattern_array = array('boo','poo');
// Loop through the patterns to match
foreach($pattern_array as $pattern){
// Test if the string is matched
if(preg_match('/'.$pattern.'/', $anything)){
// Set matches to true
$matches = true;
}
}
// Proceed if matches is true
if($matches){
// Do your stuff here
}
Alternatively, if you are only trying to match strings then it would be much more efficient if you were to use strpos like so:
// Default matches to false
$matches = false;
// Set the strings to match
$strings_to_match = array('boo','poo');
foreach($strings_to_match as $string){
if(strpos($anything, $string) !== false)){
// Set matches to true
$matches = true;
}
}
Try to avoid regular expressions where possible as they are a lot less efficient!