What are the potential pitfalls of using complex regular expressions for matching specific patterns in PHP?

Using complex regular expressions for matching specific patterns in PHP can lead to decreased readability, maintainability, and performance issues. To solve this, it is recommended to break down the complex regular expression into smaller, more manageable parts or use alternative methods like string functions or parsing libraries. 

// Example of breaking down a complex regular expression into smaller parts
$pattern1 = '/^[\w]+/';
$pattern2 = '/[0-9]+$/';
$string = 'abc123';

if (preg_match($pattern1, $string) && preg_match($pattern2, $string)) {
    echo 'String matches both patterns';
}

Keywords

Regular expressions complexity performance backtracking catastrophic backtracking

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