php preg match. Find elements with two values not in order

Question

I got array like:

$array = array(
    3A32,
    4565,
    7890,
    0012,
    A324,
    9002,
    3200,
    345A,
    0436
);

Then I need to find which elements has two numbers. The value of number can change.

If values were:

$n1 = 0; 
$n2 = 3;

For that search preg_match() should return (3200,0436)

If values were:

$n1 = 0; 
$n2 = 0;

preg_match() should return (0012,3200,9002)

Any idea?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Instead of using preg_match, you might use preg_grep and dynamically create a pattern that will match the 2 values in each order using an alternation.

^[A-Z0-9]*0[A-Z0-9]*3[A-Z0-9]*|[A-Z0-9]*3[A-Z0-9]*0[A-Z0-9]*$

The character class [A-Z0-9] matches either a char A-Z or a digit 0-9.

Regex demo | Php demo

If you want to use other characters, you could also take a look at preg_quote to handle regular expression characters.

function getElementWithTwoValues($n1, $n2) {
    $pattern = "/^[A-Z0-9]*{$n1}[A-Z0-9]*{$n2}[A-Z0-9]*|[A-Z0-9]*{$n2}[A-Z0-9]*{$n1}[A-Z0-9]*$/";
    $array = array(
        "3A32",
        "4565",
        "7890",
        "0012",
        "A324",
        "9002",
        "3200",
        "345A",
        "0436"
    );

    return preg_grep($pattern, $array);
}

print_r(getElementWithTwoValues(0, 3));
print_r(getElementWithTwoValues(0, 0));

Output

Array
(
    [6] => 3200
    [8] => 0436
)
Array
(
    [3] => 0012
    [5] => 9002
    [6] => 3200
)