In PHP 5.5 and above, getting the error message is as simple as:
<?php
echo array_flip(get_defined_constants(true)['pcre'])[preg_last_error()];
preg_last_error
(PHP 5 >= 5.2.0, PHP 7)
preg_last_error — Returns the error code of the last PCRE regex execution
Description
preg_last_error
( void
) : int
Returns the error code of the last PCRE regex execution.
Example #1 preg_last_error() example
<?php
preg_match('/(?:\D+|<\d+>)*[!?]/', 'foobar foobar foobar');
if (preg_last_error() == PREG_BACKTRACK_LIMIT_ERROR) {
print 'Backtrack limit was exhausted!';
}
?>
The above example will output:
Backtrack limit was exhausted!
Return Values
Returns one of the following constants (explained on their own page):
PREG_NO_ERRORPREG_INTERNAL_ERRORPREG_BACKTRACK_LIMIT_ERROR(see also pcre.backtrack_limit)PREG_RECURSION_LIMIT_ERROR(see also pcre.recursion_limit)PREG_BAD_UTF8_ERRORPREG_BAD_UTF8_OFFSET_ERROR(since PHP 5.3.0)PREG_JIT_STACKLIMIT_ERROR(since PHP 7.0.0)
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User Contributed Notes 8 notes
gk at anuary dot com ¶
5 years ago
andre at koethur dot de ¶
6 years ago
Here is a more advanced function to convert an error code to text:
<?php
function preg_errtxt($errcode)
{
static $errtext;
if (!isset($errtxt))
{
$errtext = array();
$constants = get_defined_constants(true);
foreach ($constants['pcre'] as $c => $n) if (preg_match('/_ERROR$/', $c)) $errtext[$n] = $c;
}
return array_key_exists($errcode, $errtext)? $errtext[$errcode] : NULL;
}
?>
eu at ericruiz dot com dot br ¶
2 years ago
Take it into account before use this function.
My php --version
PHP 5.6.29 (cli) (built: Dec 8 2016 09:19:46)
Copyright (c) 1997-2016 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.6.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2016 Zend Technologies
On Linux Fedora 23 4.8.13-100.fc23.x86_64 #1 SMP Fri Dec 9 14:51:40 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
<?php
// @see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4440626/how-can-i-validate-regex
// returns true because there is no opening "(" for the closing ")"
var_dump(preg_match('~InvalidRegular)Expression~', null) === false);
// this SHOULD be something different from 0, but...
var_dump(preg_last_error());
?>
johan at bluemoonit dot net ¶
9 years ago
The above function pcre_error_deocde [sic] is not correct - not all of the used constants are errors constants. For example, when the error is actually PREG_BAD_UTF8_ERROR, the function outputs the text for PREG_SPLIT_OFFSET_CAPTURE.
andre at koethur dot de ¶
6 years ago
Just an addition to my previous note: In unicode mode (with "u" modifier), PREG_BAD_UTF8_ERROR only reflects errors in the subject string. If the pattern itself contains invalid characters, preg_match() (or preg_match_all()) returns false but preg_last_error() returns 0 indicating PREG_NO_ERROR. Instead, php issues a warning: "preg_match(): Compilation failed: invalid UTF-8 string at offset 0"
Daniel Klein ¶
1 month ago
Here is a correction to one of the previous "get error message" snippets. It filters out the non-error codes which stops "Warning: array_flip(): Can only flip STRING and INTEGER values!" from being emitted due to ["PCRE_JIT_SUPPORT"]=>bool(true):
<?php
echo array_flip(array_filter(get_defined_constants(true)['pcre'], function ($value) {
return substr($value, -6) === '_ERROR';
}, ARRAY_FILTER_USE_KEY))[preg_last_error()];
Anonymous ¶
1 month ago
If you use T-Regx library, to get the last constant, you can use
<?php
echo preg_last_error_constant(); // 'PREG_BAD_UTF8_ERROR'
Vladimir Valikaev ¶
1 month ago
Getting error as text (small update):
<?php
echo array_flip(array_filter(get_defined_constants(true)['pcre'], function($v) { return is_integer($v); }))[preg_last_error()];
