Why Doesn't My PHP Regex Match Unicode Letters?

Unicode Letter Character Matching in PCRE/PHP: Revised Understanding

In an attempt to develop a flexible name validator, a PHP pattern has been developed to match Unicode letter characters, apostrophes, hyphens, and spaces:

$namePattern = "/^([\p{L}'\- ])+$/";

However, this pattern has encountered issues when encountering non-ASCII characters such as Ă or 张. To rectify this, the following insights must be considered:

1. Unicode Modifier: The primary issue is the absence of the u modifier, which is essential for activating Unicode support in PCRE/PHP. Without this modifier, the Unicode character properties become unavailable.

2. Corrected Pattern: The corrected pattern, including the u modifier, is as follows:

$namePattern = '/^[-\' \p{L}]+$/u';

By incorporating these modifications, the pattern can now effectively match Unicode letter characters, ensuring compatibility with a wider range of inputs.

The above is the detailed content of Why Doesn't My PHP Regex Match Unicode Letters?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!