php regex match any number of words

Question

I am new to php regex. I am trying to match any number of words. For eg: A 'person name' can have any number of words, how can I do this?

I tried using \\w+\\ , but its matching only 1 word.

DEMO

Answer 1

You may try this,

preg_match('~^\w+(?:\h+\w+)*$~', $str);

DEMO

Answer 2

You can use the following for matching any number of words separated by whitespace:

[\w\s]+

See DEMO

PHP:

preg_match('~^[\w\s]+$~', $str);