Solution:
Whether to use PHP’s regular string functions or regex depends on the task:
For basic operations (e.g., searching for a string, replacing a substring), the standard string functions like strpos() and substr() are usually simpler and sufficient.
For more complex patterns (e.g., extracting IP addresses or other structured data), regex is often the better choice.
I haven’t benchmarked regex extensively, but in practice, the time saved by using regex instead of carefully crafted string functions usually isn’t significant. In fact, for many small, sequential operations, regex can actually complicate things.
Example Based on Your Case:
Suppose you need to:
Grab the first part of a string (up to the third occurrence of “000000”) and compare its hash to the next 20 bytes.
Then grab the next 19 bytes and split them into two 8-byte segments, ignoring 1 byte in the middle.
Using string functions:
// Grab first part and find position
$pos = strpos($myStr, '000000'); // adjust for third occurrence as needed
$firstHalf = substr($myStr, 0, $pos);
// Compare its hash to next 20 bytes
$nextBytes = substr($myStr, $pos, 20);
// Split next 19 bytes into 8 + 1 + 8
$part1 = substr($myStr, $currPos, 8);
$part2 = substr($myStr, $currPos + 9, 8);
Using regex (alternative, if desired):
preg_match('/(.*?0{6}.*?0{6}.*?)0{6}/', $myStr, $matches);
✅ Recommendation:
For multiple small, sequential string operations, basic string functions are clearer and easier to manage.
Regex is more suitable when you need to match a complex pattern in a single step.