What are the drawbacks of using regular expressions for parsing BBCode in PHP, and what alternative approaches can be considered?

One drawback of using regular expressions for parsing BBCode in PHP is that they can be complex and difficult to maintain, especially as the BBCode syntax becomes more intricate. An alternative approach is to use a parser library specifically designed for handling BBCode, which can simplify the parsing process and make the code more readable and maintainable. 

// Using a BBCode parser library for parsing BBCode in PHP
require_once 'path/to/bbcode-parser-library.php';

$bbcode = '[b]Bold text[/b] [i]Italic text[/i]';
$parser = new BBCodeParser();
$parsedText = $parser->parse($bbcode);

echo $parsedText;

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