extract greater than 4 digit numbers from a string php regular expression

Question

preg_match_all('/(\d{4})/', $text, $matches);

Using above function we can extract exact 4 digit numbers from a given string.

How can extract the numbers that contains greater than 4 digits using regular expression..

Is there any way to specify the minimum length in regular expressions ?

Answer 1

Yes, you can specify the minimum length:

/(\d{4,})/

The brace syntax accepts a single number (as you used) indicating the exact number of repetitions to match, but it also allows specifying the minimum and maximum number of repetitions to match, separated by a comma. If the maximum is omitted (but the comma isn't), as in this answer, then the maximum is unbounded. The minimum can also be omitted, which is the same as explicitly specifying a minimum of 0.

Answer 2

You'll want something like this:

\d{4,}

So:

preg_match_all('#(\d{4,})#', $text, $matches);

Note that I used # as the delimiter here, I find it easier to look at :)

Answer 3

\d{4,}

Should do it. This sets 4 to minimum.

Answer 4

preg_match_all('/(\d{4,})/', $text, $matches);