split string in numbers and text but accept text with a single digit inside

Question

Let's say I want to split this string in two variables:

$string = "levis 501";

I will use

preg_match('/\d+/', $string, $num);
preg_match('/\D+/', $string, $text);

but then let's say I want to split this one in two

$string = "levis 5° 501";

as $text = "levis 5°"; and $num = "501";

So my guess is I should add a rule to the preg_match('/\d+/', $string, $num); that looks for numbers only at the END of the string and I want it to be between 2 and 3 digits. But also the $text match now has one number inside...

How would you do it?

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1450967/match-number-at-the-end-of-the-string: [`^.*\b(\d+)$`](https://regex101.com/r/cR9rL8/1) — Wiktor Stribiżew, Mar 08 '16 at 17:41
@WiktorStribiżew ok but then how do you match "levis 5°" ? — Chriz74, Mar 08 '16 at 17:51
[`^(.*?)\s*(\d+)$`](https://regex101.com/r/cR9rL8/2). Bascially the same as fusion3k's. Do you always need to only match 2 parts only? Or can there be more than 2? You can try [`\s*(?=\s*\d+\D*$)`](https://regex101.com/r/cR9rL8/4) with `preg_split`. — Wiktor Stribiżew, Mar 08 '16 at 18:00
I have posted an answer. Please check, and let me know if anything is unclear. — Wiktor Stribiżew, Mar 09 '16 at 16:49

Wiktor Stribiżew · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-08T19:27:27.253

2

To slit a string in two parts, use any of the following:

preg_match('~^(.*?)\s*(\d+)\D*$~s', $s, $matches);

This regex matches:

^ - the start of the string
(.*?) - Group 1 capturing any one or more characters, as few as possible (as *? is a "lazy" quantifier) up to...
\s* - zero or more whitespace symbols
(\d+) - Group 2 capturing 1 or more digits
\D* - zero or more characters other than digit (it is the opposite shorthand character class to \d)
$ - end of string.

The ~s modifier is a DOTALL one forcing the . to match any character, even a newline, that it does not match without this modifier.

Or

preg_split('~\s*(?=\s*\d+\D*$)~', $s);

This \s*(?=\s*\d+\D*$) pattern:

\s* - zero or more whitespaces, but only if followed by...
(?=\s*\d+\D*$) - zero or more whitespaces followed with 1+ digits followed with 0+ characters other than digits followed with end of string.

The (?=...) construct is a positive lookahead that does not consume characters and just checks if the pattern inside matches and if yes, returns "true", and if not, no match occurs.

See IDEONE demo:

$s = "levis 5° 501";
preg_match('~^(.*?)\s*(\d+)\D*$~s', $s, $matches);
print_r($matches[1] . ": ". $matches[2]. PHP_EOL);
print_r(preg_split('~\s*(?=\s*\d+\D*$)~', $s, 2));

edited Mar 08 '16 at 19:27

answered Mar 08 '16 at 18:25

Wiktor Stribiżew

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this one is working for me `"/^(.*?)\\s*(\\d+)$/"` . Could you or anyone point me to a tutorial or something on patterns? – Chriz74 Mar 08 '16 at 19:13
I do not know your level of regex knowledge :) so that I can only suggest doing all lessons at [regexone.com](http://regexone.com/), reading through [regular-expressions.info](http://www.regular-expressions.info), [regex SO tag description](http://stackoverflow.com/tags/regex/info) (with many other links to great online resources), and the community SO post called [What does the regex mean](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22937618/reference-what-does-this-regex-mean). – Wiktor Stribiżew Mar 08 '16 at 19:21
I have added explanations. – Wiktor Stribiżew Mar 08 '16 at 19:27
1

Hello, thanks I checked it, I used this "/^(.*?)\\s*(\\d+)$/" as it seems it's working correctly. Thanks for the clarifications and links, I checked. – Chriz74 Mar 09 '16 at 16:50
Very glad. Thank you for an interesting question. Keep them coming! :-) – Wiktor Stribiżew Mar 09 '16 at 17:01

split string in numbers and text but accept text with a single digit inside

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