[RESOLVED] preg_match_all multiple instances in 1 string

scrupul0us

suppose i have a string e.g.

$$start .. some data .. $$end .. some data .. $$start .. some data .. $$end

right now my preg_match_all is only seeing the first start and the final end and not the mulitple instances that occur

how do i individually grab each "set"

laserlight

What exactly do you want to grab? It looks like there are only two sets.

scrupul0us

yup... actually there are three sets... i only showed two as an example

but the start and end are the same.... instead of getting three results from preg_match_all i just get one that encompasses the entire string

laserlight

Ah, okay. You might be looking for something like:

$pattern = '/\$\$start.*?\$\$end/';
if (preg_match_all($pattern, $str, $matches))
{
    foreach ($matches[0] as $match)
    {
        echo $match . '<br />';
    }
}
else
{
    echo 'No matches.';
}

scrupul0us

heres my current regex

preg_match_all("/%%BeginResource\: font [A-Z]{6}\+RodinCID\-[A-Z]{1,2}(.*)%%EndResource/sim",$font,$matches);

your way gave me the same results

sorry for the misleading posted open and closing bits... mine are actually a little more involved

as i said this works but doesnt break things down

laserlight

as i said this works but doesnt break things down

Could you give an example?

scrupul0us

the dataset is several thousand lines long

but for simplicty:

%%BeginResource: font ABCDEF+RodinCID-AB

..crap load of data..

%%EndResource
.. misc crap ..
%%BeginResource: font GHIJKL+RodinCID-CD

..crap load of data..

%%EndResource
.. misc crap ..
%%BeginResource: font MNOPQR+RodinCID-EF

..crap load of data..

%%EndResource

i get one returned match for that entire structure instead of three matches

laserlight

hmm... this works for me:

<?php
$str = '%%BeginResource: font ABCDEF+RodinCID-AB

..crap load of data..

%%EndResource
.. misc crap ..
%%BeginResource: font GHIJKL+RodinCID-CD

..crap load of data..

%%EndResource
.. misc crap ..
%%BeginResource: font MNOPQR+RodinCID-EF

..crap load of data..

%%EndResource';
$pattern = '/%%BeginResource:.*?%%EndResource/ms';
if (preg_match_all($pattern, $str, $matches))
{
    foreach ($matches[0] as $match)
    {
        echo '[' . $match . ']<br />';
    }
}
else
{
    echo 'No matches.';
}
?>

Out of curiosity, did you happen to change '.*?' to '.*'? I notice that you were doing greedy matching in your example, so perhaps when modifying my example, you changed it to greedy too and thus it did not work.

scrupul0us

that did it!

thanks LL