PHP正则表达式：匹配最接近的一个

Question

I have a string like this

<div><span style="">toto</span> some character <span>toto2</span></div>

My regex:

/(<span .*>)(.*)(<\/span>)/

I used preg_match and it returns the entire string

<span style="">toto</span> some character <span>toto2</span>

I want it returns:

<span style="">toto</span>
and
<span>toto2</span>

What do I need to do to achieve this? Thanks.

Answer 1

How about this:

/(<span[^>]*>)(.*?)(<\/span>)/

Check the docs here at PHP preg_match Repetition:

By default, the quantifiers are "greedy", that is, they match as much as possible

and

However, if a quantifier is followed by a question mark, then it becomes lazy, and instead matches the minimum number of times possible