What am I doing wrong with this preg_match() ?

[ShadowMetis]

preg_match('!<td><a href=\"click.php?id(.*)\" TARGET=_NEW>Link</a> </td>!s', $return_ex, $link);
$link = $link['1'];

Why doesn't this work when I know that $return_ex contains that pattern?

[swr]

The ? is a metacharacter that means "match the previous character zero or one times". You need to put a backslash before it to escape it.

Probably not a problem for you in this case, but... When extracting stuff from HTML, it's often useful to use ".?" instead of ".". The question mark in that case (after a * or +) makes it "non-greedy"; it will match the smallest possible string instead of the largest possible string.

[ShadowMetis]

Finally! Thanks man, I've been scratch'n my head on this one all day.

[ShadowMetis]

Ok, now it's returning everything from the (.*) until the end of the document. Why is it doing that and how can I stop it?

[ShadowMetis]

Nvm, I got it.