Regex question

teguh123

$content = preg_replace("'href=\"/'si",'href="',$content);

I expect to remove all href="/blablabla into href="blablabla

Didn't work.

What should I have done?

bradgrafelman

[man]str_replace/man is all you need to use for this situation.

EDIT: Though what you're describing can be accomplished with a simple str_replace(), I did in fact try your code and it seemed to work as well.

teguh123

Why didn't I think of it.

bradgrafelman

Don't forget to mark this thread resolved (if it is).

teguh123

Is / a special character in regex?

I tried to use / with both \/ and just /

None work

ANyway, I wonder why it doesn't work, but yea, this is pretty much resolved.

Thanks.... I'll just use str_replace

teguh123

$content = str_replace('href="/','href="',$content); also doesn't work.

I have no idea why

Somehow it doesn't replace "/ with /

teguh123

Using str_replace doesn't work

However, if I try to replace

"/ with " rather than href="/ into href="

it works perfectly

I think there is some hidden space between href and = and " in the original server response which internet explorer seems to delete

bradgrafelman

Can you save the data you're manipulating into a .txt file and attach it to your post? (Don't forget to give us a line number or something to show specifically which link(s) you're having trouble with.)

YAOMK

I know this is a solved thread but I thought it presented a good opportunity to further the discussion in regards to regular expressions.

Php allows Perl style regex declarations which are contained within / and /
"\" on the other hand is used to scape characters such as quotation marks etc.
Another important point to make is that when using regex for validation routines make sure to start your regex with the anchor /^ and end them with \z/ instead of $/ which fails to mark the real end of the expression, leaving it vulnerable.

In regards to your code, this should work:
$content = preg_replace("/href=.*/", "href=\"string\"", $content);

For a good regex tutorial to start you off please visit here