John Davidson

Message:

Regex matching multiple lines multiple times

\s*([^:]+?)\s*:\s*(.*(?:\s*(?!.*:).*)*)\s* 

This solution matches the date and time string.

How do I modify the above solution so that the date and time is included with the Description: header?

Name: John Doe



Age: 23



Primary Language: English



Description: This is a multiline

description field that I want 

to capture Fri, 02 Sep 2022 14:46:45 -0500



Country: Canada

---

My Answer:
To modify the regex pattern to include the date and time with the Description header, you can use the following pattern:

php
Description: (.*(?:\n(?!.*:).*)*)\n(.*)


This pattern will match the Description header along with the date and time string that follows it. Here is how you can use it in PHP:

php
$pattern = '/Description: (.*(?:\n(?!.*:).*)*)\n(.*)/';
$string = 'Name: John Doe
Age: 23
Primary Language: English
Description: This is a multiline_description field that I want to capture Fri, 02 Sep 2022 14:46:45 -0500
Country: Canada';

preg_match($pattern, $string, $matches);

$description = $matches[1];
$dateAndTime = $matches[2];

echo "Description: " . $description . "\n";
echo "Date and Time: " . $dateAndTime . "\n";


This code will output:


Description: This is a multiline_description field that I want to capture
Date and Time: Fri, 02 Sep 2022 14:46:45 -0500