Regular Expressions 101

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  • PCRE2 (PHP >=7.3)
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/
<a.*?href="(.*?)".*?>(.*)<\/a>
/
g
<a matches the characters <a literally (case sensitive)
.*?
matches any character (except for line terminators)
*? Quantifier — Matches between zero and unlimited times, as few times as possible, expanding as needed (lazy)
href=" matches the characters href=" literally (case sensitive)
1st Capturing Group
(.*?)
.*?
matches any character (except for line terminators)
*? Quantifier — Matches between zero and unlimited times, as few times as possible, expanding as needed (lazy)
" matches the character " literally (case sensitive)
.*?
matches any character (except for line terminators)
*? Quantifier — Matches between zero and unlimited times, as few times as possible, expanding as needed (lazy)
> matches the character > literally (case sensitive)
2nd Capturing Group
(.*)
.*
matches any character (except for line terminators)
< matches the character < literally (case sensitive)
\/ matches the character / literally (case sensitive)
a> matches the characters a> literally (case sensitive)
Global pattern flags
g modifier: global. All matches (don't return after first match)
Your regular expression does not match the subject string.Try launching the debugger to find out why.

Regular Expression
No Match

/
/
g

Test String

Regular Expressions 101

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