I have two strings: $first = '/this/is/a/string'; $second = '/this/:param1/a/:param2'; And I'm trying to get this: $params = array('param1' => 'is', 'param2' => 'string'); But getting from point a to b is proving more than my tired brain can handle at the moment. Anything starting with a ':' in the second string defines a variable name/position. There can be any number of variables in $second which need to be extracted from $first. Segments are separated by a '/'. Thanks.