Global RegExp match

A global RegExp match can be performed using preg_match_all. preg_match_all returns all matching results in the subject string (in contrast to preg_match, which only returns the first one).

The preg_match_all function returns the number of matches. Third parameter $matches will contain matches in format controlled by flags that can be given in fourth parameter.

If given an array, $matches will contain array in similar format you’d get with preg_match, except that preg_match stops at first match, where preg_match_all iterates over the string until the string is wholly consumed and returns result of each iteration in a multidimensional array, which format can be controlled by the flag in fourth argument.

The fourth argument, $flags, controls structure of $matches array. Default mode is PREG_PATTERN_ORDER and possible flags are PREG_SET_ORDER and PREG_PATTERN_ORDER.

Following code demonstrates usage of preg_match_all:

$subject = "a1b c2d3e f4g";
$pattern = '/[a-z]([0-9])[a-z]/';

var_dump(preg_match_all($pattern, $subject, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER)); // int(3)
var_dump($matches);
preg_match_all($pattern, $subject, $matches); // the flag is PREG_PATTERN_ORDER by default
var_dump($matches);
// And for reference, same regexp run through preg_match()
preg_match($pattern, $subject, $matches);
var_dump($matches);

The first var_dump from PREG_SET_ORDER gives this output:

array(3) {
  [0]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(3) "a1b"
    [1]=>
    string(1) "1"
  }
  [1]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(3) "c2d"
    [1]=>
    string(1) "2"
  }
  [2]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(3) "f4g"
    [1]=>
    string(1) "4"
  }
}

$matches has three nested arrays. Each array represents one match, which has the same format as the return result of preg_match.

The second var_dump (PREG_PATTERN_ORDER) gives this output:

array(2) {
  [0]=>
  array(3) {
    [0]=>
    string(3) "a1b"
    [1]=>
    string(3) "c2d"
    [2]=>
    string(3) "f4g"
  }
  [1]=>
  array(3) {
    [0]=>
    string(1) "1"
    [1]=>
    string(1) "2"
    [2]=>
    string(1) "4"
  }
}

When the same regexp is run through preg_match, following array is returned:

array(2) {
  [0] =>
  string(3) "a1b"
  [1] =>
  string(1) "1"
}