Explain this pcre pattern, please..

[klemme]

I have this pattern which finds links, inside a text string from file_get_contents function.

Works fine, it seems. But I am curious to understand the expression, each charachter of it, what it does etc.

Here you go:

preg_match_all('~href=("|\')(.*?)\1~', $var, $out);

I know what it does obviously, but what does (.*?)\1~ do?

What does this ~ mean? Is that just the start and end delimeter used i this case? So that could also be // (start, end)?

Finally, any good simple source where I can read up on these expressions, from beginner to more advanced level?

All the best, Klemme

[cereal]

Check the manual: http://www.php.net/manual/en/reference.pcre.pattern.syntax.php

~ is a delimiter, from the manual:

Often used delimiters are forward slashes (/), hash signs (#) and tildes (~)

(.*?) it's a loop to match the contents of href attribute, bye!

[pritaeas]

Here's another website with good explanations.

[klemme]

Thank you, I will read up on it :-)