Reuse matched group in regex

Question

I'm trying to match: everything between "{{ loop (something) }}" and the first {{ /loop (that something) }}

Text example:

{{ LOOP data }}
  <span> Member key       =  {{.key}}  </span>
  <span> Member value     =  {{.}}     </span>
  <span> Member member    =  {{name}}  </span>
  <span> Iteration number = {{.counter}} </span>
{{ /LOOP data }}

Here is the regex not working:

/\{\{\s+loop\s+(.+?)\s+\}\}([\w\W]+?)\{\{\s+\/loop\s$1\s+\}\}/i

As you can see I'm trying to reuse the first matched group with "$1": What am I missing?

Php code following:

$text = '
{{ LOOP data }}
  <span> Member key       =  {{.key}}  </span>
  <span> Member value     =  {{.}}     </span>
  <span> Member member    =  {{name}}  </span>
  <span> Iteration number = {{.counter}} </span>
{{ /LOOP data }}   
';

preg_match('/\{\{\s+loop\s+(.+?)\s+\}\}([\w\W]+?)\{\{\s+\/loop\s\1\s+\}\}/i', $text, $match);
print_r($match);
die;

score 7 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 14 '13 at 13:13

7

I believe you want \1, not $1.

More information: http://www.regular-expressions.info/brackets.html#usebackrefinregex

edited Jan 14 '13 at 13:13

DaveRandom

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answered Jan 14 '13 at 13:07

Mark Reed

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Pounce'd! Thanks, @DaveRandom, but I'd already corrected it by the time your comment posted. Was thinking Perl instad of PHP. – Mark Reed Jan 14 '13 at 13:11
Cool, this is probably the answer then :-) – DaveRandom Jan 14 '13 at 13:12

Reuse matched group in regex

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