How to get attribute from bbcode [URL] tag using regex

Question

I have a string

$string = \'[URL=\"http://www.google.com\"]Google[/URL]

I am using the following code to convert it to html link

Answer 1

I think what you want is preg_match?

Actually, you can just use the pattern you already have. It will give you the whole match and each match within round parantheses through a parameter.

preg_match('/\[url=(.+?)\](.+?)\[\/url\]/i', $string, $matches);
echo $matches[1]; // http://www.google.com
echo $matches[2]; // Google
echo $matches[0]; // [URL="http://www.google.com"]Google[/URL]

The return value of preg_match is 1 (match found) or 0/false (no match/error).