php-regexHow to use PHP regex to match an XML tag?

PHP regex can be used to match an XML tag. The following example code block shows how to use regex to match an XML tag:

$string = '<tag>content</tag>';
$pattern = '/<(.+?)>(.*?)<\/(.+?)>/';
preg_match($pattern, $string, $matches);

The output of the example code is:

Array
(
    [0] => <tag>content</tag>
    [1] => tag
    [2] => content
    [3] => tag
)

Code explanation

• $string: the string to be matched
• $pattern: the regex pattern used to match the string
• preg_match(): the PHP function used to match the string with the regex pattern

Helpful links

• PHP Regex
• PHP preg_match()

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