What are the key differences between ereg and preg_* functions in PHP for pattern matching?

The key difference between ereg and preg_* functions in PHP for pattern matching is that ereg functions are POSIX compliant and use a simpler regex syntax, while preg functions use Perl-compatible regular expressions (PCRE) which are more powerful and flexible. It is recommended to use preg functions for pattern matching in PHP as they offer more features and better performance compared to ereg functions.

// Using preg_match for pattern matching
$string = "Hello, World!";
if (preg_match("/\bHello\b/", $string)) {
    echo "Match found!";
} else {
    echo "No match found.";
}