phpregexmatchingpreg-match-all

Regex capturing repeating group in php without whitespace

I'm trying to parse strings by a regex in PHP that always have this format: FooBar(,[0-9]{7}[0-9A-F]{8})+ or in other words, they have a start value/word followed by 1 or multiple entries, each entry is one comma (,), followed by 7 digits and 8 hexdec characters (digits or uppercase characters A to F).

My Regex to capture this is /^C7(,[0-9]{7}[0-9A-F]{8})+$/ which kind of works. When used in a preg_match_all it returns an array with two entries, the first as expected the input string, however, in the second array there's only one entry, the last matched chunk. (see Example)

I need to capure all the chunks matched by the capturing group. I did some research and found this answer, which seamed to be about the same issue: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2205009/2989952, So I've adjusted my regex to /(,[0-9]{7}[0-9A-F]{8})+$/, but I still only get one match. This can be tested at regex101.com. I then experimented some more, and found, that if I change the input string, to contain a space (or any not matched character for that matter), between the chunks, like this: C7,22801422CFE0F63 ,2280141C5EF0F63 ,22801402EFD0F63 ,2280138C5ED0F63 ,228024329897530 ,228023829877530 and adjust the regex once again to /(,[0-9]{7}[0-9A-F]{8})+/ it does exactly as it is intended to do!

Question: Is there a way to achieve this, matching all the chunks in this recurring group without adding whitespaces in between? If so, how?

EDIT

To illustrate the problem:
No Whitespace No Whitespace https://regex101.com/r/ilkZjD/1

enter image description here Whitespace/random chars https://regex101.com/r/mimBgz/1

Goal: Behaviour of second one, the one with whitespaces, but not adding the whitespaces (respectively the not matched characters).

EDIT 2 (hacky solution)

I kind of found a solution, considering this https://stackoverflow.com/a/3513858/2989952 Answer. The Regex /(?:,)([0-9]{7}[0-9A-F]{8})/ works for me. https://regex101.com/r/LEEFzv/1.However I'd still like a way, to match the initial FooBar. as that indicates the incoming string should be matched with this regex at all.
(I know I could simply check the string in a second regex for this, I however would love to have it in one regex)

Example:
Input: 'C7,22801422CFE0F63,2280141C5EF0F63,22801402EFD0F63,2280138C5ED0F63,228024329897530,228023829877530'

Solution

  • Is that what you want?

    $in = 'C7,22801422CFE0F63 ,2280141C5EF0F63 ,22801402EFD0F63 ,2280138C5ED0F63 ,228024329897530 ,228023829877530';

preg_match_all('/(^\w+|\G)\h*(,[0-9]{7}[0-9A-F]{8})/', $in, $m);
print_r($m);

    Output:

    Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => C7,22801422CFE0F63
            [1] =>  ,2280141C5EF0F63
            [2] =>  ,22801402EFD0F63
            [3] =>  ,2280138C5ED0F63
            [4] =>  ,228024329897530
            [5] =>  ,228023829877530
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [0] => C7
            [1] => 
            [2] => 
            [3] => 
            [4] => 
            [5] => 
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [0] => ,22801422CFE0F63
            [1] => ,2280141C5EF0F63
            [2] => ,22801402EFD0F63
            [3] => ,2280138C5ED0F63
            [4] => ,228024329897530
            [5] => ,228023829877530
        )

)

    Explanation:

    (               : start group 1
  ^\w+          : beginning of line, 1 or more word characters
  |             : O
  \G            : match form this point
)               : end group 1
\h*             : 0 or more horizontal spaces
(               : start group 2
  ,             : a comma
  [0-9]{7}      : 7 digits
  [0-9A-F]{8}   : 8 hexa
)               : end group 2