Actually I am searching a string for specific tokens which follow a pattern @@text@@ and want to retrieve the tokens from that string into a new array:
my address is @@address@@ and my house is at @@street@@ and the number is @@number@@
I want the tokens in that sentence as an array:
array[0] = @@address@@
array[1] = @@street@@
array[2] = @@number@@
$input = 'my address is @@address@@ and my house is at @@street@@ and the number is @@number@@ or so ';
preg_match('/@@[^a-z]@@/', $input, $output);
echo $output[0];
echo $output[1];
Actually all my tokens are surrounded by two @@ but the tokens can vary in number of characters and items. Any idea
Use preg_match_all() to get all matches. preg_match() just returns the first match.
Your regexp is wrong. [^a-z] matches everything except letters, but you want to match letters. And you need the + quantifier to match more than one.
preg_match_all('/@@[a-z]+@@/', $input, $matches);
$output = $matches[0];
var_dump($output);