Dot (.) Meta character Php Regex

Question

Dot (.) Meta character is not matching text and showing zero(o) output. Please tell me what i am missing in this code.

$string = 'pakistan';
echo preg_match('/p.n/',$string);

Answer 1

Use below code:-

preg_match("/p.*n/U", $string, $match);   
echo '<pre>'; print_r($match[0]);

If you want to count how many times specific word is repeating in the string

Use preg_match_all

preg_match_all ("/p.*n/U", $string, $match);   
echo '<pre>'; print_r($match[0]);

Hope it will help you :)

Answer 2

The following regex:

$string = 'pakistan';
echo preg_match('~^p.+n$~',$string);

Anchors the string to the beginning and end and requires at least one (but unlimited times) character between p and n .