正则表达式将字符串与数组匹配

Question

I'm trying to form a regex that will match a string that "looks" like an array.

• Must start with [, { or (
• Must end with ], }, or )
• Does not matter if start and end use same bracket (e.g. (....} is fine)
• Items are separated by commas
• All white-space types are ignored
• Empty arrays must be accepted

What I came up with initially was

'/\s*[\[|\{|\(]\s*\w+\s*[,\s*\w+]*\s*[\]|\}|\)]\s*/'

Unfortunately this doesn't accept an empty array. So I tried another

'/\s*[\[|\{|\(][\s*\w+\s*]?[,\s*\w+]*\s*[\]|\}|\)]\s*/'`

This one allows the empty array but also allows an array that starts with a comma after the opening bracket (e.g. [, item, item]).

What I'm doing currently is using two different regexes and checking that one or the other matches. The other regex is similar to the first one I mentioned here but only allows zero or more whitespace characters between the open and closing markers.

Answer 1

I've used spaces and newlines below for clarity. They should be removed or use a regex option that ignores them. I find it easier to develop regexs this way.

[\[\{\(]
    \s*
    (
    |
        \w+\s*
        (,\s*\w+\s*)*
    )
[\]\}\)]

This has not been tested, but I hope it's very close.