note 36514 deleted from pcre.pattern.modifiers by didou

Note Submitter: php@dellah.org ---- Actually, the i option has no relevance to that. Your sample code gives the same results whether you have the i there or not. It's really the difference between matching with no regex, or with a regex that can match anywhere. The null regex vs the empty regex. Though if you want a regex that never matches, /(?!)/ is nicer.