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Bug #73236 preg_match subcaptures are overwritten in repeating patterns
Submitted: 2016-10-03 18:19 UTC Modified: 2016-10-03 20:22 UTC
From: kael dot shipman at gmail dot com Assigned:
Status: Not a bug Package: PCRE related
PHP Version: 7.0.11 OS: Ubuntu Studio Linux 16.04.1
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
 [2016-10-03 18:19 UTC] kael dot shipman at gmail dot com
Description:
------------
It appears as though when a subcapture is contained within a repeating pattern, the value is overwritten by subsequent matches, leaving only the last captured value in the $matches array, rather than all matched values.

Test script:
---------------
preg_match(
  '/^([^<]+)(?:<([^>]+)>)*$/',
  'main<subkey><nothersub><onemore>',
  $keys
);
var_dump($keys);

Expected result:
----------------
array(
  'main<subkey><nothersub><onemore>',
  'main',
  'subkey',
  'nothersub',
  'onemore'
)

Actual result:
--------------
array(
  'main<subkey><nothersub><onemore>',
  'main',
  'onemore'
)

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 [2016-10-03 20:15 UTC] bwoebi@php.net
-Status: Open +Status: Not a bug
 [2016-10-03 20:15 UTC] bwoebi@php.net
Thank you for taking the time to write to us, but this is not
a bug. Please double-check the documentation available at
http://www.php.net/manual/ and the instructions on how to report
a bug at http://bugs.php.net/how-to-report.php

As per http://www.pcre.org/pcre.txt (the documentation of the underlying library):

       If a capturing subpattern is matched repeatedly, it is the last portion
       of the string that it matched that is returned.

this is expected behavior.
 [2016-10-03 20:22 UTC] kael dot shipman at gmail dot com
Oops, sorry for making extra work, and thanks for the clarification!
 
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