preg_split regex on different characters

Question

I am trying to split up some titles into 3 parts:

Title: Name -- Edition

I'd like to split up these strings into

Array
(
    [0] => Title
    [1] => Name
    [2] => Edition
)

These titles may not have the edition, or the name field, or either of them.

Any help with this regex would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT

Thanks for everyones answers - I actually wrote this answer really quick as I had to step out the next minute. The "Title" "Name" and "Edition" can have other characters possibly I'm not entirely sure but it is possible. For example: This is the Title?: The Specific Name 012 -- An individual Edition!!

These characters (if they appear) will always be unique (: and --)

I will look over everyones answers in the morning, thank you for all your answers.

EDIT #2

To Clarify a little better, The title may or may not contain a name & edition, therefore these are also possible:

This is the title! -- An Edition?? which should return:

Array
(
    [0] => This is the title!
    [1] => 
    [2] => An Edition??
)

Or

This is the title!: A Name.. which should return

Array
(
    [0] => This is the title!
    [1] => A Name..
    [2] => 
)

Or just

This is the title! which should return

Array
(
    [0] => This is the title!
    [1] => 
    [2] => 
)

Maybe regex is not the best solution for this? I don't know enough about regex unfortunately :(

I've posted an answer based on the string you provided, but looking at your question again, I'd like to clarify.. is it possible that the `title`, `name` and `edition` would have spaces or non-alpha characters? this would be pretty important as it affects the regex. — Darragh Enright, Dec 01 '13 at 00:11

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 01 '13 at 00:06

2

You can use preg_match_all()

$str = 'Title: Name -- Edition';
preg_match_all('/\w+/', $str, $matches);
var_dump($matches[0])

Yields:

array(3) {
  [0] =>
  string(5) "Title"
  [1] =>
  string(4) "Name"
  [2] =>
  string(7) "Edition"
}

Hope this helps :)

answered Dec 01 '13 at 00:06

Darragh Enright

13,676
7
41
48

Thanks Darragh, I apologize about my vague question. Do my edits help with your question(s)? – Corey Dec 01 '13 at 22:41

bagonyi · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-02T22:26:01.280

2

This should work when Title, Name or Edition is not just one word:

preg_match("/([^:-]+(?=(?::|--|$))) (?::\s)? ([^(--)]*(?=(?:--|$))) (?:--\s)? (.*)/x", 'Long Title: With Long Name -- And an Edition', $output);

$output:

Array
(
    [0] => Long Title: With Long Name -- And an Edition
    [1] => Long Title
    [2] => With Long Name
    [3] => And an Edition
)

Regular expression visualization

Debuggex Demo

edited Dec 02 '13 at 22:26

answered Dec 01 '13 at 00:16

bagonyi

3,258
2
22
20

This works as i'd expect, but not if I remove the Name or Edition. Is there a way to still return the results if those do not exist? Please see my update(s). Thanks for your answer – Corey Dec 01 '13 at 22:40
Updated the regex, try again. – bagonyi Dec 01 '13 at 23:39
Pretty close! The only thing that doesnt work is if I just have Long Title -- And an Edition (it just returns the full string) – Corey Dec 02 '13 at 00:31
Ok.. updated. Now it should be ok. – bagonyi Dec 02 '13 at 01:01
Works perfectly! Thanks for all your help! Can you explain how it works a little bit? Regex is beyond my comprehension lol – Corey Dec 02 '13 at 06:29

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 01 '13 at 00:10

0

$subject = "Title: Name -- Edition";
preg_match("/(.+): (.+) -- (.+)/i", $subject, $matches);

Therefore

$matches[0] == "Title"
$matches[1] == "Name"
$matches[2] == "Edition"

Not tested

answered Dec 01 '13 at 00:10

Saif Ur Rehman

338
3
14

preg_split regex on different characters

3 Answers3