Regex to parse define() contents, possible?

Question

I am very new to regex, and this is way too advanced for me. So I am asking the experts over here.

Problem I would like to retrieve the constants /

Answer 1

Try this regular expression to find the define calls:

 /\bdefine\(\s*("(?:[^"\\]+|\\(?:\\\\)*.)*"|'(?:[^'\\]+|\\(?:\\\\)*.)*')\s*,\s*("(?:[^"\\]+|\\(?:\\\\)*.)*"|'(?:[^'\\]+|\\(?:\\\\)*.)*')\s*\);/is

So:

$pattern = '/\\bdefine\\(\\s*("(?:[^"\\\\]+|\\\\(?:\\\\\\\\)*.)*"|\'(?:[^\'\\\\]+|\\\\(?:\\\\\\\\)*.)*\')\\s*,\\s*("(?:[^"\\\\]+|\\\\(?:\\\\\\\\)*.)*"|\'(?:[^\'\\\\]+|\\\\(?:\\\\\\\\)*.)*\')\\s*\\);/is';
$str = '';
preg_match_all($pattern, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER);
var_dump($matches);

I know that eval is evil. But that’s the best way to evaluate the string expressions:

$constants = array();
foreach ($matches as $match) {
    eval('$constants['.$match[1].'] = '.$match[1].';');
}
var_dump($constants);