Split string into array regex php

Question

I need to split the string bellow into array keys like in this format:

string = "(731) some text here with number 2 (220) some 54 number other text here" convert into:

array( 
  '731' => 'some text here with number 2', 
  '220' => 'some 54 number other text here' 
);

I have tried:

preg_split( '/\([0-9]{3}\)/', $string ); 

and got:

array ( 
  0 => 'some text here', 
  1 => 'some other text here' 
); 

Answer 1

Code

$string = "(731) some text here with number 2 (220) some 54 number other text here";

preg_match_all("/\((\d{3})\) *([^( ]*(?> +[^( ]+)*)/", $string, $matches);
$result = array_combine($matches[1], $matches[2]);

var_dump($result);

Output

array(2) {
  [731]=>
  string(28) "some text here with number 2"
  [220]=>
  string(30) "some 54 number other text here"
}

ideone demo

---

Description

The regex uses

• \((\d{3})\) to match 3 digits in parentheses and captures it (group 1)
• \ * to match the spaces in between keys and values

• ([^( ]*(?> +[^( ]+)*) to match everything except a ( and captures it (group 2)
  This subpattern matches exactly the same as [^(]*(?<! ) but more efficiently, based on the unrolling-the-loop technique.

  *Notice though that I am interpreting a value field cannot have a ( within. If that is not the case, do tell and I will modify it accordingly.

After that, we have $matches[1] with keys and $matches[2] with values. Using array_combine() we generate the desired array.