$string='this dog is done';
preg_match('/^this dog is [^.]+/',$string,$m);
echo $m[0]."
"; // prints "this dog is done"
How do I just get 'done', without the rest of the string?
From the documentation:
If matches is provided, then it is filled with the results of search.
$matches[0]will contain the text that matched the full pattern,$matches[1]will have the text that matched the first captured parenthesized subpattern, and so on.
So:
$string='this dog is done';
preg_match('/^this dog is ([^.]+)/',$string,$m);
echo $m[1]."
";