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can somebody please explain this code for me in simple steps. thanks in advance

$text = 'we need to send products ACE66765, ACE33453, and ace72345
         back to the customer.';

$regex = '/ACE\d{4}/i';

$productNumbers = getPartsWithRegex($text, $regex);

foreach($productNumbers as $productNumber){

    echo $productNumber . '<br/>';
}


function getPartsWithRegex($text, $regex){

    preg_match_all($regex, $text, $array);

    return $array[0];

}
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See the FAQ, asking for code explanation is off-topic here. – Winston Ewert♦ Feb 9 at 22:04

closed as off topic by palacsint, Peter Kiss, Quentin Pradet, Winston Ewert♦ Feb 9 at 22:04

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1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote 
$text = 'we need to send products ACE66765, ACE33453, and ace72345 back to the customer.';

Set the variable $text to the string.

$regex = '/ACE\d{4}/i';

Defines the Rex-Ex(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression) searchpattern to look for words starting with ACE and having a min. of 4 numbers 

$productNumbers = getPartsWithRegex($text, $regex);

Sets the variable $productNumbers as an array to the returned value of the function getPartsWithRegex. The arguments of the function are the previous two variables defined. $text and $regex.

foreach($productNumbers as $productNumber){
    echo $productNumber . '<br/>';
}

Loops through the array $productNumbers - as $productNumber. $productnumber is the value of the field. Each time printing the $productNumber followed by
- HTML newline.

function getPartsWithRegex($text, $regex) {
    preg_match_all($regex, $text, $array);
    return $array[0];
}

Defines the function called earlier, to call preg_match_all. Defines a table with all found matches. (Third argument $array).

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thank u very much , now i get them all, i am confused with the last part which is return $array[0] in the function getPartsWithRegex() , – Abdul Raziq Feb 10 at 9:23
Look up preg_match_all on php.net. It returns a multidimensional array. – Frederik Spang Feb 15 at 11:09

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