capture values from regex?

[coo_t2]

Hey all. I'm pretty sure the answer to this is no, but I thought I'd better ask anyway in case there's a way I don't know about.

In perl you can use variables that you've captured in a regex after the line that the regex is on.

Example:

if($strVar =~ /I (love) nachos/)
{ print "do you $1 nachos?";
}

Will print:
do you love nachos?

So is there a way to capture values like this in PHP and use them later?
Or are you restricted to using them in the other arguments of the preg_* function?

--ed

[Mandibal]

how about preg_grep?

[sweatje]

sure...

if(preg_match('/I (love) nachos/', $strVal, $matches))
{ print "do you {$matches[1]} nachos?";
} 

[coo_t2]

sure...

if(preg_match('/I (love) nachos/', $strVal, $matches))
{ print "do you {$matches[1]} nachos?";
} 

I couldn't count how many times I've done this.
Momentary lapse of reason, I guess.

--ed

[phptek]

How about:

$regex = "I (love) Nachos";
preg_prelace("#$regex#","Do you \$1 Nachos?");

It's called backreferencing.
http://uk2.php.net/manual/en/function.preg-replace.php

HTH

[coo_t2]

How about:

$regex = "I (love) Nachos";
preg_prelace("#$regex#","Do you \$1 Nachos?");

It's called backreferencing.
http://uk2.php.net/manual/en/function.preg-replace.php

HTH

Yeah, even though I got confused when I asked my question, my original intent was to use captured values from a preg_replace, and use it afterwards.
Somewhere along the lines I lost track of the problem and got confused.
I have fuzzy moments

BUt it'd still be nice to be able to use captured values from a preg_replace after the fact.

--ed