What best practices should be followed when using regular expressions in PHP to ensure consistent and reliable results?

When using regular expressions in PHP, it is important to follow best practices to ensure consistent and reliable results. This includes properly escaping special characters, using appropriate delimiters, and testing the regex pattern thoroughly before implementation. Additionally, using PHP's built-in functions like preg_match() or preg_replace() can help streamline the process and improve performance. 

// Example of using preg_match to validate an email address
$email = "example@example.com";

if (preg_match("/^[a-zA-Z0-9._%+-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9.-]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,}$/", $email)) {
    echo "Valid email address";
} else {
    echo "Invalid email address";
}

Keywords

regular expressions PHP consistent reliable results best practices

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