Syntax:int preg_match ($pattern, $input, $matches, $flags, $offset)
Parameters: This function takes five parameters as above and described below:
- pattern:this parameter contains the pattern to search as a string.
- input:this parameter contains the input string.
- matches:if matches exist, they contain the search results. $Match [0] will contain text that matches the full pattern, $match [1] will contain text that matches the first captured subpattern, and so on.
- flags: Flags can be the following flags:
- PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE:if passed, the offset of the added row will be returned for each match.
- PREG_UNMATCHED_AS_NULL: if this flag is omitted, subpatterns that do not match are reported as NULL; otherwise they are reported as an empty string.
- offset:usually the search starts at the beginning of the input string. This optional offset parameter is used to specify where to start the search (in bytes).
Return Value:returns true if the pattern exists, otherwise - false.The following are examples to illustrate the preg_match() function in PHP:Example 1:This example accepts the PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE flag.
// Declare a variable and initialize it $engineer = ’GeeksforGeeks’ ;
// Use preg_match() to check for compliance preg_match ( ’/ (Geeks) (for) (Geeks) /’ , $engineer , $matches , PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE);
// Show the result of matches print_r ( $matches );
?> Exit:Array ([ 0] = > Array ([0] = > GeeksforGeeks [1] = > 0) [1] = > Array ([0] = > Geeks [1] = > 0) [2] = > Array ([0] = > for [1] = > 5) [3] = > Array ([0] = > Geeks [1] = > 8))
Example 2:
// Declare a variable and initialize it $gfg = "GFG is the best Platform." ;
// case insensitive search for the word & quot; GFG & quot; if (preg_match ( "/ GFG / i" , $gfg , $match )) echo "Matched!" ; else echo " not matched " ;
?> Exit:Matched!
Link: http://php.net/manual/ en / function.preg-match.php
