如何使用PHP检查给定格式的字符串？

Question

I have many headlines in my project like:

00.00.2014 - Headline Description e.t.c.

I want to check with php if the given strings contain the format 00.00.0000 - in front. The part after the - doesn't matter.

Can someone help me with something like:

$format = '00.00.0000 -';

if ($string MATCHES $format IN FRONT) {
    // ...some code...
}

Answer 1

This should work:

if (preg_match("/^\d{2}\.\d{2}\.\d{4}\s\-\s.*$/", $string) === 1) {
    // $string matches!
}

Explanation:

• ^ is "the beginning of the string"
• \d is any digit (0, 1, 2, ..., 9)
• {n} means "repeated n times"
• \. is a dot
• \s is a space
• \- is a minus sign
• . is "any single character"
• * means "repeated 0 or more times`
• $ means "end of the string"