Match the smallest number of characters starting with "p" and ending with "t"

 
<?
$text = "pot post pat patent";
if ( preg_match( "/p.*?t/", $text, $array ) ) {
  print "<pre>\n";
  print_r( $array );
  print "</pre>\n";
}
?>

1.	Brackets [] finds a range of characters.
2.	Character Classes
3.	Complete list of regular expression examples
4.	\b and \B, equate to "On a word boundary" and "Not on a word boundary," respectively.
5.	^ and $ are line anchors.
6.	Line Anchors
7.	Match URL
8.	Match an IP address
9.	Matching GUIDs/UUIDs
10.	Matching a Valid E-mail Address
11.	Matching a Valid IP Address
12.	Matching using backreferences
13.	Matching with Greedy vs. Nongreedy Expressions
14.	Matching with character classes and anchors
15.	Matching with \|
16.	Define a pattern and use parentheses to match individual elements within it
17.	Greedy Qualifiers
18.	Greedy and non-greedy matching
19.	Greedy versus nongreedy matching
20.	Grouping captured subpatterns
21.	Validating Pascal Case Names
22.	Validating U.S. Currency
23.	Validating a credit card number
24.	Nongreedy Qualifiers
25.	POSIX Regular Expressions Character Classes
26.	POSIX Regular Expressions Character Classes
27.	Ranges
28.	Option patterns:
29.	Predefined Character Ranges (Character Classes)
30.	Pattern matches:
31.	Pattern match extenders:
32.	Perl-Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE)
33.	Qualifiers restrict the number of times the preceding expression may appear.
34.	Quantifiers for Matching a Recurring Character
35.	Quantifiers: +, *, ?, {int. range}, and $ follow a character sequence:
36.	Special classes for regular expression
37.	Regular expressions using character classes

Match the smallest number of characters starting with "p" and ending with "t" : Regular Expressions « String « PHP