PHP: Return string between two characters

Question

I am wanting to use "keywords" within a large string. These keywords start and end using my_keyword and are user defined. How, within a large string, can I search and find what is between the two * characters and return each instance?

The reason it might change it, that parts of the keywords can be user defined, such as page_date_Y which might show the year in which the page was created.

So, again, I just need to do a search and return what is between those * characters. Is this possible, or is there a better way of doing this if I don't know the "keyword" length or what i might be?

Answer 1

<?php
// keywords are between *
$str = "PHP is the *best*, its the *most popular* and *I* love it.";    
if(preg_match_all('/\*(.*?)\*/',$str,$match)) {            
        var_dump($match[1]);            
}
?>

Output:

array(3) {
  [0]=>
  string(4) "best"
  [1]=>
  string(12) "most popular"
  [2]=>
  string(1) "I"
}