Match words starting with capitals in php?

Question

I have a string

 $str="NassarWellerGomez-GarciaSanchez-RenedoLoeches-SanchezGomez-GarciaMunoz-FerrerasSanchez-RenedoChiaoHakkarainenWernerValkamaHarounPlett";

I want to match words starting with capitals only like: Nassar Weller Gomez-Garcia etc

I used this : 

preg_match('/[A-Z][a-z]+/', $str,$match);

But its not working, help me out here please!

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 31 '12 at 18:43

4

preg_match_all('/[A-Z][a-z]*(?:-[A-Z][a-z]*)*/', $str, $match);
var_dump($match[0]);

answered Dec 31 '12 at 18:43

Barmar

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@BarryChapman Thanks, Fixed that. Also now matches `Foo-Bar-Baz` as a single name (any number of hyphenates allowed). – Barmar Dec 31 '12 at 18:48

Travesty3 · Answer 2 · 2012-12-31T18:38:52.323

Try this:

$result = preg_split('/[A-Z]/', $str, null, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);
var_dump($result);

I haven't tested it, but I think it will work, or at least point you in the right direction.

It does not work for the hyphenated names. For that, I believe you would need to use a (positive or negative) lookbehind, but I don't know enough to explain that off the top of my head. You'll have to look it up, but at least now you know what to look for.

Looking at http://www.regular-expressions.info/lookaround.html as a quick reference, it looks like perhaps this would be the regex with the negative lookbehind you need:

'/(?<!-)[A-Z]/'

This basically means "match any capital letter not followed by a hyphen."

preg_split('/[A-Z].+/', $sno, 1, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE); This is working somewhat — Aditya, Dec 31 '12 at 18:52

Match words starting with capitals in php?

2 Answers2