What are some common mistakes to avoid when using regex patterns in PHP functions like preg_match_all?

One common mistake to avoid when using regex patterns in PHP functions like preg_match_all is not properly escaping special characters. To solve this issue, always use the preg_quote() function to escape any special characters in the regex pattern before using it in preg_match_all.

$pattern = '/[a-z]+/';
$escaped_pattern = preg_quote($pattern, '/');
preg_match_all($escaped_pattern, $input_string, $matches);