can't determine proper regular expression

[ppowell]

I am trying to replace within the HTML string $html the following:

<a href="index.php?section=image&refAction=edit&previousRefOrig=edit&chooseAlbum=1&album=here&sort=&willDesc=&willDisplayPanel=&action=move_image">Go back..</a>

With

<a href="index.php?section=image&refAction=edit&previousRefOrig=edit&chooseAlbum=1&album=here&sort=&willDesc=&willDisplayPanel=&action=edit">Go back..</a>

Where I'm replacing "action=move_image" with "action=<?= $_REQUEST['refAction'] ?>"

I'm using regular expressions to do just that, or at least I'm trying:

		$html = preg_replace('/([&\?])action=[^&">]*([&"])([^>]*>Go back.*$)/', '$1action=' . $_REQUEST['refAction'] . '&blah=foo' . $pagQS . '$2$3', $html);

I'm using "&blah=foo" as my test to see if preg_replace() has taken place, so far, it hasn't.

Several class methods spawn the query string before "Go back.." several different ways; however, there will always be a "action=[something]" within the query string for you to change, just cannot predict where; furthermore, there MAY also include "refAction=[something]" within the same query string.

How do I do this either with regular expressions or some other way?

Thanx
Phil

[sneakyimp]

ppowell wrote:

I'm using "&blah=foo" as my test to see if preg_replace() has taken place, so far, it hasn't.

Several class methods spawn the query string before "Go back.." several different ways; however, there will always be a "action=[something]" within the query string for you to change, just cannot predict where; furthermore, there MAY also include "refAction=[something]" within the same query string.

that's a bit confusing. what do you mean 'spawn the query string'? another question..will action=something never be first or is it sometimes the only query string? in that case, you would need to also check for ? in addition to & before action=blah.

i think regular expressions will def. work for you, i'm just not sure what is going wrong.

[brianadkins]

Your regex looks good to me on its own. You are checking for both & and ? before 'action', so all bases seem to be covered.

I plugged it into this program and it works just how you want: http://weitz.de/regex-coach/

is there a chance that case sensitivity is causing a problem somewhere?

You could try the case-insensitive option:

$html = preg_replace('/([&\?])action=[^&">]*([&"])([^>]*>Go back.*$)/i', .......

[ppowell]

Yeah case-insensitivity failed to produce a match as well 🙁

This guy on Google groups suggested I scrap using regular expressions altogether and concentrate n physically changing the query string HTML text by writing a class to do that.

What I did instead was incorporate that functionality within one of my classes, LinkView, to do just that.

Need code review though as I couldn't think of a more efficient way of doing it:

class LinkView extends View {

  function LinkView() {}

  // DOES MORE STUFF

/**
 * Filter values from $this->qsArray according to key and val
 *
 * @access public
 * @param mixed $key
 * @param mixed $val (optional)
 */
function &alterQSArray($key, $val) {														// STATIC VOID METHOD
	$this->qsArray[$key] = $val;
}

/**
 * Generate values from a query string parameter or from $_GET into $this->qsArray
 *
 * @access public
 * @param mixed $qs (optional)
 * @see array_insert
 */
function &generateQSArray($qs = '') {														// STATIC VOID METHOD
	if ($qs) {
	 $equalGlueQSArray = @explode('&', $qs);
	 for ($i = 0; $i < @sizeof($equalGlueQSArray); $i++) {
	  $noEqualGlueQSArray = @explode('=', $equalGlueQSArray[$i]);
	  @array_insert(array($noEqualGlueQSArray[0] => $noEqualGlueQSArray[1]), $qsArray);
	 }
	} elseif (is_array($_GET) && @sizeof($_GET) > 0) {
	 foreach ($_GET as $key => $val) @array_insert(array($key => $val), $qsArray);
	}
	$this->setQSArray($qsArray);
}

/**
 * Glue together $this->qsArray into a query string
 *
 * @access public
 * @return mixed $qs
 */
function &glueQSArray() {																// STATIC HTML STRING METHOD
	$qsArray = $this->getQSArray();
	if (is_array($qsArray) && @sizeof($qsArray) > 0) foreach ($qsArray as $key => $val) $qs .= "&$key=" . urlencode($val);
	return substr($qs, 1, strlen($qs));
}

}