matchAll returning all matching groups

[hebinet]

In my Code I use something like this:

Str::of($job->location->address)
            ->trim()
            ->matchAll('/^(.*?),\s+(\d+)\s+(.*)$/')

and only getting the first group match back.

Wouldn't it be better that all the matching groups should be returned?

This would be easily accomplished by changing the matchAll() method return in Str class from

if (empty($matches[0])) {
    return collect();
}

return collect($matches[1] ?? $matches[0]);

to

if (empty($matches[0])) {
    return collect();
}

if (count($matches === 1)) {
    return collect($matches[0]);
}

return collect(array_slice($matches, 1));

What do you think?
This would be propably a breaking change and therefore could only be implemented in v10+.

[django23]

Agree, or at least a documentation update that explains it return only the first group.

[shaedrich]

Aside from that, return collect($matches[1] ?? $matches[0]); looks a little counterintiuitve to me

[shaedrich]

Well, I have a hunch as to why this was done, but having this as the first entry of an array is a limitation of the language itself, yet, it doesn't have to be one of the framework. The method could return a class, that would return the matches, starting at 1, via __get() and has $matches[0] as a named property.

But yeah, that would be even more of a breaking change …