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Delimiters

When using the PCRE functions, it is required that the pattern is enclosed by delimiters. A delimiter can be any non-alphanumeric, non-backslash, non-whitespace character.

Often used delimiters are forward slashes (/), hash signs (#) and tildes (~). The following are all examples of valid delimited patterns.

/foo bar/
#^[^0-9]$#
+php+
%[a-zA-Z0-9_-]%

If the delimiter needs to be matched inside the pattern it must be escaped using a backslash. If the delimiter appears often inside the pattern, it is a good idea to choose another delimiter in order to increase readability.

/http:\/\//
#http://#

In addition to the aforementioned delimiters, it is also possible to use bracket style delimiters where the opening and closing brackets are the starting and ending delimiter, respectively.

{this is a pattern}

You may add pattern modifiers after the ending delimiter. The following is an example of case-insensitive matching:

#[a-z]#i