匹配前两个单词的前两个字母

Question

I'm using regex + php I would match the first two letters of the first two word of a line

For example for the line :

Mr Christophe Mailler Jean Dupon

I need to match :

Ch Ma

I tried this regex :

(?:Mr|Mme)\s+\b([a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z])

But it matches only Ch

Any help please?

Answer 1

You need to extend the pattern match the second word, too, like this:

(?:Mr|Mme)\s+([a-zA-Z]{2})\S*\s+([a-zA-Z]{2})

I'd also recommend taking advantage of Unicode support in the PCRE engine using a pattern like this:

(?:Mr|Mme)\s+(\pL{2})\S*\s+(\pL{2})

For example:

$input = "Mr Christophe Mailler Jean Dupon";
preg_match("/(?:Mr|Mme)\s+(\pL{2})\S*\s+(\pL{2})/iu", $input, $output);
echo $output[1] . ' ' . $output[2]; // Ch Ma