php - Simplify & Fix Regex -

i'm new working regular expressions , wondering if following regex somehow simplified...

{{(?:[\s]+)?(.*)([\s]+)?}} 

i trying string out of following pattern...

{{some_string}} {{    some_string}} {{  some_string   }} {{  some-string      }} {{  string  }} 

additionally, doesn't quite work right there should not trailing spaces on match.

regex101 link: http://regex101.com/r/kt9yt5

for direct match, use \k magic

{{\s*\k[^}]+?(?=\s*}}) 

see demo.

explanation

• {{\s* matches opening braces , whitespace characters
• the \k tells engine drop matched far final match returns
• the negated character class [^}]+? lazily matches characters to...
• the point lookahead (?=\s*}}) can assert follows spaces , closing braces.

sample code

see output @ bottom of live php demo.

$regex = '~{{\s*\k[^}]+?(?=\s*}})~'; preg_match_all($regex, $yourstring, $matches); print_r($matches[0]); 

output

[0] => some_string [1] => some_string [2] => some_string [3] => some-string [4] => string