Compile regex in PHP

Question

Is there a way in PHP to compile a regular expression, so that it can then be compared to multiple strings without repeating the compilation process? Other major languages

Answer 1

preg regexes can use the uppercase S (study) modifier, which is probably the thing you're looking for.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/reference.pcre.pattern.modifiers.php

S

When a pattern is going to be used several times, it is worth spending more time analyzing it in order to speed up the time taken for matching. If this modifier is set, then this extra analysis is performed. At present, studying a pattern is useful only for non-anchored patterns that do not have a single fixed starting character.