正则表达式匹配多个模式

Question

I have these

name

name[one]

name[one][two]

name[one][two][three]

I want to be able to match them like this:

[name]

[name, one]

[name, one, two]

[name, one, two, three]

Here's my regex I've tried :

/([\w]+)(?:(?:\[([\w]+)\])+)?/

I just can't quite to seem to get it right, only gets the last square brackets

Answer 1

You can't have a dynamic number of captures; the number of captures is exactly equal to the number of capture parenthesis pairs ( (?:...) don't count). You have two capture parenthesis pairs, that means you get two captures - no more, no less.

To handle variable number of matches, use submatches (in a replace with a function, if your language supports that), or split.

You haven't labeled with a programming language, so this is as specific as I can go.

Answer 2

You can't repeat groups in a regex. You can write them out a number of times though. This works for up to three groups in square brackets. You can add more if you like.

(\w+)\[(\w+)\](?:\[(\w+)\])?(?:\[(\w+)\])?

Answer 3

This should do ([\\w]+)(?:\\[([\\w]+)\\]\\+)?

http://regex101.com/r/mF8pC8/3

Changes from original regex - removed extra capture and added \\ before last + .

    1st Capturing group ([\w]+)
        [\w]+ match a single character present in the list below
            Quantifier: Between one and unlimited times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed [greedy]
            \w match any word character [a-zA-Z0-9_]
            (?:\[([\w]+)\]\+)? Non-capturing group
        Quantifier: Between zero and one time, as many times as possible, giving back as needed [greedy]
        \[ matches the character [ literally
    2nd Capturing group ([\w]+)
        [\w]+ match a single character present in the list below
        Quantifier: Between one and unlimited times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed [greedy]
        \w match any word character [a-zA-Z0-9_]
        \] matches the character ] literally
        \+ matches the character + literally
    g modifier: global. All matches (don't return on first match)

Answer 4

You can not have dynamic number of captures with php regexp...

Why not just, write something like: explode('[',strtr('name[one][two][three]', [']'=>''])) - it will give you desired result.