regex

[nova]

Hello, what would be the regex for matching a string like this:

starts with <
ends with >
and has text in between?

I thought it was something like ^(<.*>)$. But im new to this and that does not work.

Also, what does this error mean:

No ending delimiter '^' found

[planetsim]

well firstly its not < or >

Im new to regex as well..

Try * then $

theres a really good article here at phpbuilder.. Where i was directed when i learnt... (i mean still learning).

http://phpbuilder.com/columns/dario19990616.php3
thats the link

[nova]

thanks, great help.

[Weedpacket]

That article deals with the older, slower, and less powerful ereg functions. nova is using the preg_ functions; I can tell, 'cos the error message "No ending delimiter" is from the PCRE engine. ("I found ^ at the start of the regexp, so I expect another one at the end - hey, where is it?") So the article wont' explain the error, and following it would be a step backwards. Search Google for "Perl regular expressions" (maybe with the world "tutorial" thrown in), and see what pops out. See also the section in the manual on "Pattern Syntax" for a description and a few examples.

The regexp (corrected) would read:

"/^(<.*>)$/"

Note the / characters - those are the missing delimiters (and no, I didn't put that space in either).

But the problem can be solved without using preg_match at all:

substr($text,0,1)=='<' && substr($text,-1)=='>'