PHP & regex to extract two separate parts of a string as ONE recombined variable -

i have php string consisting of html code follows:

$string = '<ul> <li> <a href="/nalcrom">nalcrom</a>         (sodium cromoglicate) </li> <li> <a href="/alimemazine">alimemazine</a> </li> <li> <a href="/xolair">xolair</a>         (omalizumab) </li> </ul>'; 

using

preg_match_all($regex,$string,$matches, preg_pattern_order);  ($i = 0; $i < count($matches[0]); ++$i) { echo $i . "    " . $matches[0][$i]. "<br>"; } 

if use

$regex = "^(?<=>).*?(?=(\q</a>\e))^"; 

i get

1 nalcrom

2 alimemazine

3 xolair

whereas if use

$regex = "^\(.*?\)^"; 

i get

1 (sodium cromoglicate)

2 (omalizumab)

trying

$regex = "^(?<=>).*?(?=(\q</a>\e))(\(.*?\))^"; 

and variations upon nothing blank, whereas need is:

1 nalcrom (sodium cromoglicate)

2 alimemazine

3 xolair (omalizumab)

any ideas on how can this? thnx

make second regex group optional ?, i.e.:

   $string =     '<ul>     <li>     <a href="/nalcrom">nalcrom</a>             (sodium cromoglicate)     </li>     <li>     <a href="/alimemazine">alimemazine</a>     </li>     <li>     <a href="/xolair">xolair</a>             (omalizumab)     </li>     </ul>';      preg_match_all('%">(.*?)</a>\s+(\(.*?\))?%i', $string, $match, preg_pattern_order);     ($i = 0; $i < count($match[0]); $i++) {         echo  $match[1][$i] . " ". $match[2][$i];     } 

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output:

nalcrom (sodium cromoglicate) alimemazine  xolair (omalizumab) 

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demo