Regex to get repeating matches within a match - php

Question

I have this sample string in a source:
#include_plugin:PluginName param1=value1 param2=value2#
What I want is to find all occurances of #include_plugin:*# from a source with a result of the PluginName and each paramN=valueN.
At this moment I'm fiddling with something like this (and have tried many variants): /#include_plugin:(.*\b){1}(.*\=.*){0,}#/ (using this resource). Unfortunately I can't seem to define a pattern which is giving me the result I want. Any suggestions?
Update with example:
Say I have this string in a .tpl-file. #include_plugin:BestSellers limit=5 fromCategory=123#
I want it to return an array with:
0 => BestSellers,
1 => limit=5 fromCategory=123
Or even better (if possible):
0 => BestSellers,
1 => limit=5,
2 => fromCategory=123

Answer 1

You can do it in 2 steps. First capture the line with a regex, then explode the parameters into an array:
$subject = '#include_plugin:PluginName param1=value1 param2=value2#';
$pattern = '/#include_plugin:([a-z]+)( .*)?#/i';
preg_match($pattern, $subject, $matches);
$pluginName = $matches[1];
$pluginParams = isset($matches[2])?explode(' ', trim($matches[2])):array();

Answer 2

You can use this regex:
/#include_plugin:([a-zA-Z0-9]+)(.*?)#/
The PluginName is in the first capturing group, and the parameters are in the second capturing group. Note that the parameters, if any, has a leading spaces.
It is not possible to write a regex to extract to your even better case, unless the maximum number of parameters in known.
You can do extra processing by first trimming leading and trailing spaces, then split along /\s+/.

Answer 3

I'm not sure of your character-set that your PluginName can contain, or the parameters/values, but in case they are limited you can use the following regex:
/#include_plugin:((?:\w+)(?:\s+[a-zA-Z0-9]+=[a-zA-Z0-9]+)*)#/
This will capture the plugin name followed by any list of alpha-numeric parameters with their values. The output can be seen with:
<?
$str = '#include_plugin:PluginName param1=value1 param2=value2#
#include_plugin:BestSellers limit=5 fromCategory=123#';
$regex = '/#include_plugin:((?:\w+)(?:\s+[a-zA-Z0-9]+=[a-zA-Z0-9]+)*)#/';
$matches = array();
preg_match_all($regex, $str, $matches);
print_r($matches);
?>
This will output:
Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[0] => #include_plugin:PluginName param1=value1 param2=value2#
[1] => #include_plugin:BestSellers limit=5 fromCategory=123#
)
[1] => Array
(
[0] => PluginName param1=value1 param2=value2
[1] => BestSellers limit=5 fromCategory=123
)
)
To get the array in the format you need, you can iterate through the results with:
$plugins = array();
foreach ($matches[1] as $match) {
$plugins[] = explode(' ', $match);
}
And now you'll have the following in $plugins:
Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[0] => PluginName
[1] => param1=value1
[2] => param2=value2
)
[1] => Array
(
[0] => BestSellers
[1] => limit=5
[2] => fromCategory=123
)
)

Answer 4

$string = "#include_plugin:PluginName1 param1=value1 param2=value2# #include_plugin:PluginName2#";
preg_match_all('/#include_plugin:([a-zA-Z0-9]+)\s?([^#]+)?/', $string, $matches);
var_dump($matches);
is this what you are looking for?
array(3) {
[0]=>
array(2) {
[0]=>
string(55) "#include_plugin:PluginName1 param1=value1 param2=value2"
[1]=>
string(27) "#include_plugin:PluginName2"
}
[1]=>
array(2) {
[0]=>
string(11) "PluginName1"
[1]=>
string(11) "PluginName2"
}
[2]=>
array(2) {
[0]=>
string(27) "param1=value1 param2=value2"
[1]=>
string(0) ""
}
}

Answer 5

This Regex will give you multiple groups, one for each plugin.
((?<=#include_plugin:)(.+))