3v4l.org

run code in 500+ PHP versions simultaneously
<?php $abs = "Bob Rob Sue"; $abby = "sometext Bob1:2 is Sue3:4 where Rob2:1 etc"; // escape each word for safe use in a regular expression, then join with pipes $words = str_replace(" ", "|", preg_quote($abs)); // build a regular expression that finds a boundary, a word, \d+:\d+, and a boundary $regex = '/\b(' . $words . ')(\d+:\d+)\b/'; preg_match_all($regex, $abby, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER); print_r($matches);
Output for 7.2.0 - 7.2.34, 7.3.0 - 7.3.33, 7.4.0 - 7.4.33, 8.0.0 - 8.0.30, 8.1.0 - 8.1.34, 8.2.0 - 8.2.34, 8.3.0 - 8.3.35, 8.4.1 - 8.4.26, 8.5.0 - 8.5.11
Array ( [0] => Array ( [0] => Bob1:2 [1] => Bob [2] => 1:2 ) [1] => Array ( [0] => Sue3:4 [1] => Sue [2] => 3:4 ) [2] => Array ( [0] => Rob2:1 [1] => Rob [2] => 2:1 ) )
preferences:
33.34 ms | 1153 KiB | 7 Q