regex help request

[Anon]

Greetings-

I'm learning regular expressions and am having the most difficult of times. I've been able to grasp matching/checking okay but replacing not so much. Currently I would like to take a credit card number :

1111222233334444

and output it as such :

1111 2222 3333 4444

so yes, add a space every 4 characters. I figure I'd trim($cc_number) then add the spaces. Simple concept which doesn't help the frustration factor 😉 You think (p)ereg_replace would be best for the job? Or split? Please provide a solution, I'd be most greatful. The concepts of [0-9]{4} makes sense but putting it to use does not. I need help. Thank you.

Learning regular expressions and loving it!

[Anon]

Hi!! Try this:

$cc_number = ereg_replace("([0-9]{4})([0-9]{4})([0-9]{4})([0-9]{4})", "\1 \2 \3 \4", $cc_number);

I'm sure there are better solutions, but this one, sure works =)

See ya

inK

[Anon]

ahh, thank you! That makes perfect sense, will play with it. The \# 's really make sense to me now, very nice.

[Anon]

a general tip; preg is faster (as it's not POSIX compliant) and more powerful (beacuse of all the extra perl-y bits) than ereg.

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rad