Split string only once between sequence of letters and sequence of numbers - php

Question

I want to extract two substrings from a predictably formatted string.
Each string is comprised of letters followed by numbers.
Inputs & Outputs:
MAU120 => MAU and 120
MAUL345 => MAUL and 345
MAUW23 => MAUW and 23

Answer 1

$matches = array();
if ( preg_match('/^([A-Z]+)([0-9]+)$/i', 'MAUL345', $matches) ) {
echo $matches[1]; // MAUL
echo $matches[2]; // 345
}
If you require the MAU you can do:
/^(MAU[A-Z]*)([0-9]+)$/i
Removing i modifier at the end will make the regex case-sensitive.

Answer 2

Try this regular expression:
/(\D*)(\d*)/
PHP code:
$matches = array();
var_dump( preg_match('/(\D*)(\d*)/', 'MAUL345', $matches) );
var_dump( $matches );

Answer 3

Taken literally from your examples:
<?php
$tests = array('MAU120', 'MAUL345', 'MAUW23', 'bob2', '?##!123', 'In the MAUX123 middle.');
header('Content-type: text/plain');
foreach($tests as $test)
{
preg_match('/(MAU[A-Z]?)(\d+)/', $test, $matches);
$str = isset($matches[1]) ? $matches[1] : '';
$num = isset($matches[2]) ? $matches[2] : '';
printf("\$str = %s\n\$num = %d\n\n", $str, $num);
}
?>
Produces:
$test = MAU120
$str = MAU
$num = 120
$test = MAUL345
$str = MAUL
$num = 345
$test = MAUW23
$str = MAUW
$num = 23
$test = bob2
$str =
$num = 0
$test = ?##!123
$str =
$num = 0
$test = In the MAUX123 middle.
$str = MAUX
$num = 123

Answer 4

When you can guarantee that there will be one or more non-numbers and then one or more numbers, you can call upon sscanf() to parse the string.
The native function has multiple advantages over preg_match().
It doesn't return the fullstring match.
It will allow you to type cast substrings depending on the format placeholder you use.
It can return its array or create reference variables -- depending on the number of parameters you feed it.
Code: (Demo)
$tests = [
'MAU120',
'MAUL345',
'MAUW23',
];
foreach ($tests as $test) {
sscanf($test, '%[^0-9]%d', $letters, $numbers);
var_export([$letters, $numbers]);
echo "\n";
}
Output: (notice that the numbers are cast as integer type)
array (
0 => 'MAU',
1 => 120,
)
array (
0 => 'MAUL',
1 => 345,
)
array (
0 => 'MAUW',
1 => 23,
)
If your numbers might start with zero(s) and you want to retain them, you can use %s instead of %d to capture the non-whitespaces substring. If you use %s, then the digits will be cast as a string instead of int-type.
Alternative syntax: (Demo)
foreach ($tests as $test) {
var_export(sscanf($test, '%[^0-9]%d'));
echo "\n";
}