What are common pitfalls when using preg_match for character recognition in PHP?

Common pitfalls when using preg_match for character recognition in PHP include not properly escaping special characters in the regular expression pattern, not handling multi-byte characters correctly, and not considering the case sensitivity of the pattern. To solve these issues, it's important to carefully construct the regular expression pattern, use the appropriate flags for multi-byte support, and consider using the 'i' flag for case-insensitive matching.

// Example of using preg_match with proper escaping and flags for multi-byte and case-insensitive matching

$text = "Hello, World!";
$pattern = '/hello/i'; // Case-insensitive pattern
if (preg_match($pattern, $text)) {
    echo "Pattern found in text.";
} else {
    echo "Pattern not found in text.";
}