修改单个RegEx以匹配字符串中的中间项

Question

This RegEx : {=tokenstring[^{}]*(?:{[^{}]*}[^{}]*)*}/g matches this string properly:

{=tokenstring?param1=11&param2={token-identifier}&param3={token-child-identifier}&param4=20}

(That string is a token which is being used in my website. It's value changes dynamically based on the provided request data in the content pages.)

I would like to add one more condition to the RegEx . For example " param3 ", to find if it exists or not in the string .

I know this new RegEx : /param3=([^&])/ will get the word " param3 " from the string but how to fit that new RegEx into the original RegEx ?

Answer 1

If you don't have a fixed number of parameters, it means you can't write a single regex, since you can't create regular expression with dynamic number of groups. However, you can iterate over matches. For example in PHP it would look like this

#Check if token is right
if (preg_match('/\A\{=tokenstring\?param.+\}\Z/s', $subject)) {
    # Successful match. Now iterate over tokens and their params
    preg_match_all('/(param\d+)=(.+?)(?:&|(?:\}$))/s', $subject, $result, PREG_SET_ORDER);
    for ($matchi = 0; $matchi < count($result); $matchi++) {
        $param = $result[$matchi][0];
        $param_value = $result[$matchi][1];
    }
} else {
    # Match attempt failed
}

UPDATE: The best I could do with a single regex is the case when one parameter could be missing (that is, there're 3 or 4 parameters)

{=tokenstring\?(?:(param\d+)=(.+?)(?:&|(?:}$)))(?:(param\d+)=(.+?)(?:&|(?:}$)))(?:(param\d+)=(.+?)(?:&|(?:}$)))|(?:(param\d+)=(.+?)(?:&|(?:}$)))

You'll get matched parameters into match groups so you could detect which parameters are missing. Also the order of parameters doesn't matter.

There's also an if-then-else (?(?=condition)then|else) construct in regex, but if you can have from 1 to 4 parameters, it means you'll have to write a nested regex of three levels, the top one checking for existence of 4 parameters, another one inside the existence of 3 parameters etc, each repeating itself with an insane number of capturing groups.

Answer 2

A tentative experiment with an online debugger. Before:

{=tokenstring[^{}]*(?:{[^{}]*}[^{}]*)*}

Debuggex Demo "before"

After:

{=tokenstring[^{}]*(?:{[^{}]*}[^{}]*)*param3=(?:{[^{}]*}[^{}]*)*}

Debuggex Demo "after"