How can I match parts of a string to variables?

[DWilliams]

String processing and regex type things are my weakness. I think I'm looking for the opposite of sprintf. What I want to do is take an input string and assign parts of it to variables, or something similar that accomplishes the same goal.

 

For example, something like this (obviously it won't work):

 

$inputString = "Bob says to you, 'stuff' ";
$pattern = "%0 says to you, '%1' ";

magical_string_function($inputString, $pattern, $matchVar1, $matchVar2);

echo $matchVar1; // Bob
echo $matchVar2; // stuff

[premiso]

preg_match would be the way to do it:

 

<?php
$string = "Bob says to you 'hello'";

preg_match("~([A-Z0-9]+?) .* '([A-Z0-9]+?)'~i", $string, $matches);

print_r($matches);
?>

 

See my signature for references for Regular Expression Syntax.