Online PHP editor | output for SE5jk

<?php $utterance = 'This is a brown bear with 7 kids'; $template = 'This is a {color} bear with {kids} kids'; $newPattern = '/'; foreach(preg_split('/(\{.*?\})/', $template, -1, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE) as $part) { if(preg_match('/^(\{.*\})$/', $part)) { $varName = trim($part, '{}'); $newPattern .= '(?P<'. preg_quote($varName) . '>.+)'; } else { $newPattern .= preg_quote($part); } } $newPattern .= '/'; echo $newPattern; echo "\n"; preg_match($newPattern, $utterance, $variables); var_dump($variables);