Regexp problem

[intenz]

I want to match something like this:

3,foo,[e-mail],255.255.255.255,foobar

Here's my code...

$_TLine = $_TId . $TDelim . $_TNafn . $TDelim . $_TEmail . $TDelim . $_TIp . $TDelim . $_TSkilabod;

if( !ereg( '^(([0-9])\,(.*)\,([A-Za-z0-9\-_])@([A-Za-z0-9\-])\.([A-Za-z]{2,5})\,([0-9]{,3})\.([0-9]{,3})\.([0-9]{,3})\.([0-9]{,3})\,(.*))$', $_TLine ) )
     die( 'Something wrong.<br>' . $_TLine );

I always get "Something wrong".

Please help me.

[xblue]

you seem to have forgotten some quantifiers.
e.g.
,([A-Za-z0-9-_])@ means exactly one of the elements within the square brackets between the comma and the @ symbol.

the letter section after the @ does look a little suspicious to me, too.

I'd try to debug by starting with the first elements from the left, adding more step by step to see where it fails.

[matt_4013]

^{[0-9]+,[a-zA-Z]+,[a-zA-Z0-9-]+(.[a-zA-Z0-9-]+)*@[a-zA-Z0-9-]+(.[a-zA-Z0-9-]+)+,([0-9]{1,3}.){3}[0-9]{1,3},[a-zA-Z0-9]+$}

Try that 🙂

[intenz]

Your works, matt_4013.

But I need to know what's wrong with mine.

Here's my latest:

^([0-9]+),(.*),([A-Za-z0-9\-_]+)@([A-Za-z0-9\-]+)\.([A-Za-z]{2,5}),([0-9]{,3})\.([0-9]{,3})\.([0-9]{,3})\.([0-9]{,3}),(.*)$

Please tell me what's wrong there.

[matt_4013]

Well, let's break it up into little bits and see what it's doing.

^([0-9]+),

should be: ^[0-9]+,

This bit is saying that the it must start with 1 or more numeric characters, then have a comma. No problems, except that the brackets aren't required.

(.*),

should be: .*,

This is saying that it can have 0 or more of any character, then must have another comma. Once again, the brackets aren't required.

([A-Za-z0-9-_]+)

should be: [A-Za-z0-9_-]+

You must have 1 or more of these characters. (I'm not sure this will work, the POSIX regex man pages tell you to put the hyphen at the end of the string of characters, and it shouldn't be escaped because it's inside square brackets). Also, this is an email address, and they can often contain periods in the username.

@([A-Za-z0-9-]+).

should be: @[A-Za-z0-9-]+.

You must have an @ symbol, followed by 1 or more of any of the characters in the string, followed by a period. (Brackets still arne't required) 😉

([A-Za-z]{2,5}),

should be: [A-Za-z]{2,5},

You must have at least 2 and no more than 5 alpha characters, followed by a comma.

([0-9]{,3}).

should be: ([0-9]{0,3}.){3}

You must have a maximum of 3 numeric characters, followed by a period. HOWEVER, this is something you can't do. You MUST specify the first number in the range. (This is just repeated 2 more times, so I'll skip the others)

([0-9]{,3}),

should be: [0-9]{0,3},

You must have a maximum of 3 numeric characters followed by a comma. Once again, you must specify.

(.*)$

should be: .*$

You must have 0 or more of any character at the end of the string.

Your main problems were the hyphens being escaped, and the fact that you didn't specify a start character in the bound range.

^{[0-9]+,.,[A-Za-z0-9-]+@[A-Za-z0-9-]+.[A-Za-z]{2,5},([0-9]{0,3}.){3}[0-9]{0,3},.$}

Hope that helps!
Matt

[intenz]

I used ActiveState Komodo Regex Checker to help me making this from scratch and it works...

^([0-9]+),(.+),([A-Za-z0-9\-_]+)@([A-Za-z0-9\-]+)\.([A-Za-z]{2,5}),([0-9]{1,3})\.([0-9]{1,3})\.([0-9]{1,3})\.([0-9]{1,3}),(.+)$