What is the purpose of using regular expressions in PHP code?

Regular expressions in PHP are used to search, match, and manipulate strings based on specific patterns. They are powerful tools for pattern matching and can be used for tasks like data validation, text parsing, and string manipulation. By using regular expressions, developers can efficiently search for and extract specific data from strings, validate user input, and perform complex text transformations. 

// Example: Using a regular expression 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 code pattern matching preg_match validation

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