What is the purpose of using preg_match in PHP and what are some common applications?

The purpose of using preg_match in PHP is to perform a regular expression match on a string. This function is commonly used to search for a specific pattern within a string and return a boolean value indicating whether the pattern was found. Some common applications of preg_match include validating input data, extracting specific information from strings, and performing text manipulation tasks. 

// 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

preg_match PHP regular expressions validation pattern matching

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