Tokenizer Example of Mirc Color and Style (bold) Codes.

mirc.php

<?php
/**
 * Tokenizer Example of Mirc Color and Style (bold) Codes.
 *
 * @link http://stackoverflow.com/q/10329443/367456
 */

$mirc = "\x034this text is red\x033this text is green\x03 \x02bold text\x02
\x034,3this text is red with a green background\x03";

$tokenizer = new Tokenizer($mirc);

while(list($token, $data) = $tokenizer->getNext())
{
    switch($token)
    {
        case 'color-fgbg':
            printf('<%s:%d,%d>', $token, $data[1], $data[2]);
            break;

        case 'color-fg':
            printf('<%s:%d>', $token, $data[1]);
            break;

        case 'color-reset':
        case 'style-bold';
            printf('<%s>', $token);
            break;

        case 'catch-all':
            echo $data[0];
            break;

        default:
            throw new Exception(sprintf('Unknown token <%s>.', $token));
    }
}

/**
 * regular expression based tokenizer,
 * first token wins.
 */
class Tokenizer
{
    private $subject;
    private $offset = 0;
    private $tokens = array(
        'color-fgbg'  => '\x03(\d{1,2}),(\d{1,2})',
        'color-fg'    => '\x03(\d{1,2})',
        'color-reset' => '\x03',
        'style-bold'  => '\x02',
        'catch-all' => '.|\n',
    );
    public function __construct($subject)
    {
        $this->subject = (string) $subject;
    }
    public function setOffset($offset)
    {
        $this->offset = max(0, $offset);
    }
    public function getOffset()
    {
        return $this->offset;
    }

    /**
     * @return array|null
     */
    public function getNext()
    {
        if ($this->offset >= strlen($this->subject))
            return NULL;

        foreach($this->tokens as $name => $token)
        {
            if (FALSE === $r = preg_match("~$token~", $this->subject, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE, $this->offset))
                throw new RuntimeException('Pattern for token %s failed (regex error).', $name);
            if ($r === 0)
                continue;
            if (!isset($matches[0])) {
                var_dump(substr($this->subject, $this->offset));
                $c = 1;
            }
            if ($matches[0][1] !== $this->offset)
                continue;
            $data = array();
            foreach($matches as $match)
            {
                list($data[]) = $match;
            }

            $this->offset += strlen($data[0]);
            return array($name, $data);
        }
        return NULL;
    }
}