Get all matches from string that start with and end, using php

Question

How would I use PHP to extract everything in between [startstring] and [endstring] from this string:

[startstring]hello = guys[endstring] hello guys [startstring]jerk = you[endstring] welcome to the universe

I'd like to find all the matches of [startstring] and [endstring], and echo the text inside. Kinda like a delimiter. And I would like all the matches echoed to be seperated by a space.

How would I go about accomplishing this? Would this require regex? Could you provide a sample?

Thanks so much! :)

Sequela

Answer 1

preg_match_all('/\[startstring\](.*?)\[endstring\]/s', $input, $matches);
echo implode(' ', $matches);

---

preg_match_all('/\[startstring\](.*?)\=(.*?)\[endstring\]/s', $input, $matches);
for ($i = 0; $i < count($matches[1]); $i++) {
    $key = $matches[1][$i];
    $value = $matches[2][$i];
    $$key = $value;
}

Twedy

In $hello and $jerk, just like you said. Just run it, echo the variables and try it out! – Twedy

Answer 2

Try with preg_match_all:

preg_match_all('/\[startstring\](.*?)\[endstring\]/', $input, $matches);
var_dump($matches);

Trend

(.*?) means a lot of backtracking, but it's by far the simplest method and will be fine. Hope the string isn't huge ;-) – Aboveground

@DoubleGras It is going to be huge... :( What do you recommend? – Sequela

How would I go about making each match into a variable? Like making hello = guys a real, useable variable in my script? $hello = guys – Sequela

I don't think it's as huge as I meant ;) Don't worry, optimizing this code is probably the least of your concerns, really. About dynamically creating variables as you suggested, forget it: unsecure, crash-prone, etc. – Aboveground

@DoubleGras no, I mean huge. Like I'm doing a whole document. Would it still be speedy? or what? thanks for your help – Sequela

You'll just have a bit of backtracking between [startstring] and [endstring], so it's completely acceptable (I'd say almost perfect). Only problem is if your document is malformed (a missing [endstring]). By huge I meant tens of MB's between [startstring] and [endstring]. – Aboveground