what should i put in this if statment to save the the current array value to a variable

Question

if (preg_match('/^([0-9]( |-)?)?(\(?[0-9]{3}\)?|[0-9]{3})( |-)?([0-9]{3}( |-)?[0-9]{4}|[a-zA-Z0-9]{7})$/', $buffer, $matches));
{
    $variable = ?;
}

Answer 1

see: http://php.net/manual/en/function.preg-match.php

In your case the $matches array holds what you are looking for. It is always a good idea to check the documentation first. Especially for something documented well.