$re = '/(# the number at the beginning
[-+]? # optional leading sign
\d+# the digits to the left of the decimal
(?:\.\d+)? # an optional decimal amount
)
(#units
\/? #optional slash
[a-zA-Z]+ # must be alphabetic
(\^?[-+]?\d+(?:\.\d+)?)? # a caret followed by our same/initial digit pattern
)+/mx';
$str = 'Very much a stupid beginner question, but trying to make a regex expression which would take in "5ms-1", "17km/h" or "9ms^-2" etc. with these ambiguous units and ambiguous formats. Please help, I can\'t manage it
5ms-1
17km/h
9ms^-2
-5mph
6.8m/h
+8liters/hectacre^2
5/h
1m^2s^2
this will also match the 21st century, 7eleven, 3M, and similar things.
';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php