PHP在字符之前和字符之后提取字符串

Question

I am trying to come up with a validation class, but I need to grab options and put them into an array after '[' and before ']'. So for example:

$dropdown = 'required|valid_option[general,recruitment,activities]';

Then I have something like this:

if(strops($str, '[')) {
   // this string contains options so grab them before ] and after [
}

I need to grab the general,recruitment,activities and then I know how to split them using explode() and then put them into an array with array_push or something like that, but I really need to figure out how to grab that string after [ and before ] somehow. I can't figure it out. I'm guessing it uses a preg_match of some sort?

Any help would be appreciated.

Edit: you are right, sorry forgot to clarify that. I have $rules as an array containing (required,valid_option[options here])... each of those are exploded on the | so $rule contains 'valid_option[option,option,option]' - I'm trying to use < that string over there.

I think someone answered on how to grab the options, now how do I grab the 'valid_option' part? I'm guessing it's something like:

substr($rule, 0, $pos1)

Answer 1

You can

preg_match_all("~(.*)\[(.*?)\]~", $valid_options, $matches);

$matches will be an array of what the regexp matched.

And the array will look like:

array
  0 => string 'valid_option[general,test,test2,recruitment,activities]'
  1 => string 'valid_option'
  2 => string 'general,test,test2,recruitment,activities'