TalkPHP - View Single Post

delayedinsanity · 02-09-2010, 09:17 PM

Regular expressions are fairly easy to pick up, they're just a little harder to master.

php Code:

header( 'Content-type: text/plain' );

$string = '<html> <test> Some content {gallery=/path/to/images} some more {gallery} </test> </html>';

// This won't work, because if there's more than one, it will get greedy
// $string = preg_replace( '~{gallery=(.*)}~i', 'FOUND ONE!', $string );

// This only matches up to the first brace it finds
$string = preg_replace( '~{gallery=([^}]+)}~i', 'FOUND ONE!', $string );

echo $string;

The above is just an example of one way to improve your expression, I'll leave the insertion of the gallery to you since you seem to have a handle on it. Uncomment the first one using the original pattern (and comment the second) and you'll see what I'm referring to.

.* is powerful, but almost always misused. Try to avoid it while you're learning and you'll pick up tricks that will help you build much more complex patterns down the road.

02-09-2010, 09:17 PM	#4 (permalink)
delayedinsanity is cute and cuddly Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Vegas, Baby Posts: 963 Thanks: 31	Regular expressions are fairly easy to pick up, they're just a little harder to master. php Code: header( 'Content-type: text/plain' ); $string = '<html> <test> Some content {gallery=/path/to/images} some more {gallery} </test> </html>'; // This won't work, because if there's more than one, it will get greedy // $string = preg_replace( '~{gallery=(.)}~i', 'FOUND ONE!', $string ); // This only matches up to the first brace it finds $string = preg_replace( '~{gallery=([^}]+)}~i', 'FOUND ONE!', $string ); echo $string; The above is just an example of one way to improve your expression, I'll leave the insertion of the gallery to you since you seem to have a handle on it. Uncomment the first one using the original pattern (and comment the second) and you'll see what I'm referring to. `.` is powerful, but almost always misused. Try to avoid it while you're learning and you'll pick up tricks that will help you build much more complex patterns down the road.