RegExp: US Postal Address

[kilbey1]

I gave up trying to write a regular expression for a valid US postal address. Instead, I'd like to replace invalid characters posted from textfield 'address'. My attempt thus far:

$filename=ereg_replace("[^{a-z,A-Z,0-9,-]","",$_POST['address']);}

It's not working quite as expected. I'd like to allow only these:
- any numeric character 0-9
- any case-insensitive letters A-Z
- hyphen
- spaces (only one between words or characters)
- apostrophes
- (possibly commas)

Things like double quotes, periods, underscores, plus signs would be stripped out.

[bpat1434]

remove the commas.....

$filename = ereg_replace("[^a-zA-Z0-9\-]", "", $_POST['address']);

And of course the PERL sister function might be faster if you can use it... [man]preg_replace/man

[kilbey1]

Hi, thanks for this. I switched to preg_replace, and this is the latest:
$filename = preg_replace("[^{a-zA-Z0-9\'-.]",} " ", $subject);

Now when I input this sort of information into my textfield:
3939; O'Hara-Baines St. NE:
...it returns this:
3939; O\'Hara-Baines St. NE:

So, 2 questions...
1. : and ; are still being allowed in; why? (I opted to allow periods in)
2. I really want to be able to find addresses like
3939 O'Hara-Baines St. NE
with a database query, so how will the \ work when searching for exact addresses? Should this be stripped? Is this necessary?

Thanks!

[bpat1434]

well, the slash thing is probably from your posted form. Do this:

if(get_magic_quotes())
{
    // magic_quotes is on, need to strip slashes
    $_POST['address'] = stripslashes($_POST['address']);
}

Try adding that before you do the regex, see if it helps.

Not sure why others are being let in.... couldn't tell you.

[jlucas]

kilbey1 wrote:

Hi, thanks for this. I switched to preg_replace, and this is the latest:
$filename = preg_replace("[^{a-zA-Z0-9\'-.]",} " ", $subject);

Now when I input this sort of information into my textfield:
3939; O'Hara-Baines St. NE:
...it returns this:
3939; O\'Hara-Baines St. NE:

So, 2 questions...
1. : and ; are still being allowed in; why? (I opted to allow periods in)
2. I really want to be able to find addresses like
3939 O'Hara-Baines St. NE
with a database query, so how will the \ work when searching for exact addresses? Should this be stripped? Is this necessary?

Thanks!

Shouldn't the $subject var be $_POST['address'] ?? Just noticed that you are using a different var then in your first post.

[Weedpacket]

[^a-zA-Z0-9\'\-\.]

Two of those backslashes are unnecessary.

[^a-zA-Z0-9'\-.]

[kilbey1]

$subject = $_POST['address'] now, and I had to change get_magic_quotes to get_magic_quotes_gpc. But still, when I enter something like
3030 0'Hara Street; NE: Rd."
...I get...
3030 0\'Hara Street; NE: Rd.\"

To verify, printing out the array gives me:
Array ( [address] => 3030 0'Hara Street; NE: Rd." [submit] => Search by Address )

$subject = $_POST['address'];
				if(get_magic_quotes_gpc()) { 
					// magic_quotes is on, need to strip slashes 
					$subject = stripslashes($subject); 
				} 
				//check to be sure field is not empty
				if ($_POST['address'] == "" && empty($_POST['address'])) {
					$message = "Please enter an address.<BR />";
					echo "<span class='error'>".$message."</span>";
				} else { //if field is not empty, do this
					$filename = preg_replace("[^a-zA-Z0-9'\-.]", " ", $subject);
					echo $filename."<br />";
					echo "Searching by address<br />";
				}
				break;

[jlucas]

kilbey1 wrote:

$subject = $_POST['address'] now, and I had to change get_magic_quotes to get_magic_quotes_gpc. But still, when I enter something like
3030 0'Hara Street; NE: Rd."
...I get...
3030 0\'Hara Street; NE: Rd.\"

To verify, printing out the array gives me:
Array ( [address] => 3030 0'Hara Street; NE: Rd." [submit] => Search by Address )

Try this instead

	$address = $_POST['address'];
	//check to be sure field is not empty
	if ( isset($address) && !empty($address)) {
		// if field IS NOT empty, do this
		if ( get_magic_quotes_gpc() ) { 
			// magic_quotes is on, need to strip slashes 
			$address = stripslashes($address); 
		} 
		$filename = preg_replace("/[^a-zA-Z0-9\'\.-]/", " ", $address);
		echo $filename.'<br />' . 'Searching by address<br />';
	} else {
		// if field IS empty, do this
		echo "<span class='error'>Please enter an address.</span><BR />";
	}
	break;

Also note, that with preg_replace, you were forgetting the '/' in your first argument of the preg_replace statement. This is something different from ereg_replace. This should set you straight.

And to correct the last person, you DO infact need a '\' before you list a '.' in your regular expression, otherwise it will be interperted as ANY char instead of just a period. But, if the last char in the list of chars for a regex is a '-' then you DO NOT need a '\' infront of it, but if the '-' is listed anywhere else in the list of chars BESIDES the last char, then you DO infact need a '\' in front of it.

Hope this helps you out.

Jim

[Weedpacket]

jlucas wrote:

And to correct the last person, you DO infact need a '\' before you list a '.' in your regular expression, otherwise it will be interperted as ANY char instead of just a period.

And to correct this, you don't need to escape the '.' inside a character class; to have it mean "any character" in such a context is meaningless, and it is instead interpreted as a literal '.'.

[jlucas]

I stand corrected. I was unaware of that.

[jlucas]

Just a short cut that might save you a few lines of code. I find this one helpfull to use.

if ( get_magic_quotes_gpc() ) {
    // magic_quotes is on, need to strip slashes
    $_POST = array_map("stripslashes", $_POST);
} 

[kilbey1]

I still can't figure out why it's letting through ; and : characters. Any ideas? Thanks for all the assistance on this.

An item such as this:
3939; O'Hara-Baines St. NE:
comes out as this when echoed...
3939; O\'Hara-Baines St. NE:
but as this in a print_r of the $_POST array:
3939; O'Hara-Baines St. NE:

Close...but I want it to come out as this in the array:
3939 O'Hara-Baines St. NE

  case 'Search by Address':
				$address = $_POST['address'];
				if ( get_magic_quotes_gpc() ) { 
					// magic_quotes is on, need to strip slashes 
					$_POST = array_map("stripslashes", $_POST); 
				} 
				//check to be sure field is not empty
				if ($address == "" && empty($address)) {
					$message = "Please enter an address.<BR />";
					echo "<span class='error'>".$message."</span>";
				} else { //if field is not empty, do this
					$filename = preg_replace("[^a-zA-Z0-9\'\-.]", " ", $address);
					echo $filename."<br />";
					echo "Searching by address<br />";
				}
				break;

[bpat1434]

When doing regEx, you need to have starting and ending delimiters....

Your regex should be:
"/[^{a-zA-Z0-9\'-.]/"}

See it in action

~Brett

[kilbey1]

Sort of...when I echo it out, it gives me almost the result I wanted.
3939 O 'Hara-Baines St. NE (don't want the space before the ')

When I print_r($_POST), still gives me
Array ( [address] => 3939; O'Hara-Baines St. NE: [submit] => Search by Address )

My intent will be to search on an address, having a LIKE address.

You can see the form here: Listings Search, and the code upon form submission:

<?php
	switch ($_POST['submit']) {
		  // if submitted MLS form
		  case 'Search by MLS Number':
		  		$pattern = '/(^\d{5}$)/';
				$subject = $_POST['mlsNum'];
				// check to be sure field is not empty
				if ($_POST['mlsNum'] == "" && empty($_POST['mlsNum'])) {
					$message = "Please enter an MLS ID.<br />";
					echo "<span class='error'>".$message."</span>";
				} elseif (!preg_match($pattern, $subject)) { //check to see what's in textfield
					$message = "Please enter a valid MLS number (must be at least 5 digits in length).<br />";
					echo "<span class='error'>".$message."</span>";
				}
				else { //if field is not empty, do this
					echo "Searching by MLS ID<br />";
				}
				break;

	  // if submitting Address form
	  case 'Search by Address':
			$address = $_POST['address'];
			if ( get_magic_quotes_gpc() ) { 
				// magic_quotes is on, need to strip slashes 
				$_POST = array_map("stripslashes", $_POST); 
			} 
			//check to be sure field is not empty
			if ($address == "" && empty($address)) {
				$message = "Please enter an address.<BR />";
				echo "<span class='error'>".$message."</span>";
			} else { //if field is not empty, do this
				$filename = preg_replace("/[^a-zA-Z0-9\'\-.]/", " ", $address);      
				echo $filename."<br />";
				echo "Searching by address<br />";
			}
			break;

	  // if submitted Detailed Search form
	  case 'Search by Detailed Criteria':
			if ($_POST['minPrice'] == "") {
				$message = "Please enter a minimum price.<BR />";
				echo "<span class='error'>".$message."</span>";
			} 
			if ($_POST['maxPrice'] == "") {
				$message = "Please enter a maximum price.<BR />";
				echo "<span class='error'>".$message."</span>";
			} 
			break;
}


print_r($_POST);

}

[jlucas]

Your order of events is all wrong.

You are doing the preg_replace() on the $_POST['address'] value you are doing it on the $address value.

This should go at the very top of your scripts.

if ( get_magic_quotes_gpc() ) { 
	// magic_quotes is on, need to strip slashes 
	$_POST = array_map("stripslashes", $_POST); 
} 

not in the middle of your case statement. Look closely at what the statement does and you will understand why you need to place it at the very top of your scripts.

Secondly, you are grabbing your copy of $address = $_POST['address'] before you run the above code. So the backslash(s) will still be in the string.

Plus, in your preg_replace, your replacement string is a space. You are going to end up with extra spaces in your string, just because you are putting them in it.

Change the replacement value to nothing an empty string.

Next time, try echoing the correct variable and make sure that your order of events are correct.

[bpat1434]

Next time, try echoing the correct variable and make sure that your order of events are correct.

Thanks kind of harsh. Kilbey didn't understand, and that comes off as "you're stupid, stop coding".

Kilbey:
jlucas is right. You need to do the stripslashes() prior to assigning $address. If you do that it works.

See it in action

[jlucas]

I thought it was to the point. Not mean.

[kilbey1]

Hi, I didn't take it personally. 🙂 Just inexperienced - I don't code enough.

jlucas...I can see why the magic quotes code should be at the top in this case, thanks.

bpat1434...when looking at your usehelp page (thanks for that), it's still showing up as "3939; O\'Hara St. NE:" in the array. Is that correct? When I eventually get around to doing a query, I don't want to have to do LIKE "3939; O\'Hara St. NE:", but rather LIKE "3939 O'Hara-Baines St. NE".

I guess what I'm not following is this...to me, it appears as if $filename is proper, but the $POST isn't. I would either need to get the $POST fields correct so that $filename appears in place of the address value, OR I'll just have to perform my query WHERE address_field LIKE '$filename' (instead of $row['address'], which I had intended to do).

So would $filename = $_POST['address'] somewhere in here, possibly?

Also..what does this do?
echo highlight_file(FILE, 1);

[kilbey1]

Ah, this seems to do what I need:

$address = preg_replace("/[^{a-zA-Z0-9\'-.]/",} " ", $address);
$_POST['address'] = $address;

See now: http://www.rw-pw.com/listingsSearch.php

[bpat1434]

As for your previous post and the whole "It shows up like XXX in the array", yes, it's supposed to do that. It's how PHP works. Once you manipulate it, that's when it's supposed to change form.

echo highlight_file(FILE, 1);

It does what it says..... Need more info: Read the manual