I have around 4k PHP files. There are more than 6k preg_* functions used in the code.
I need to find all patterns used in the code and extract them. My aim is to group such patterns and replace them with a named constant.
I want to make a list like this: https://www.exakat.io/reports/codeigniter/datas/inventories_regex.html
I tried to make a regex search, but I'm not getting it right.
regex: https://regexr.com/48s1s
The best tool I can think of for such task is structural search in PhpStorm (commercial software).
The main advantage is that it treats this kind of search as code, so it is much more discerning than regex or other search pattern that can only process text.
So you can do something like $function$($pattern$,$argument$,$anotherargument$), set filter on function to match multiple functions, and set search to capture pattern part.
preg_* functions, then place a caret on a pattern, invoke context menu > refactor > extract > variable. PhpStorm would automatically replace it with a var of your preference. You can then refactor vars into constants later on. The downside is you would have to do that manually. But I guess it's Ok since you would still have to create constants for each of patterns.Depending on the variations of those patterns, I would recommend using "Find and Replace" of an IDE, for example with Atom or Visual Studio Code
It might be quite some manual work, but you'll be able to do it step by step
