Match Syntax

[shawjames]

I still do not know all the ways to properly write match syntax patterns. Could someone help me with these:

(nt)

[########]

(end time XXX ###)

The # are some digit, the X is some alpha char.

These will be used in preg_replace

[laserlight]

Read the PHP Manual on PCRE pattern syntax.

[shawjames]

laserlight wrote:

Read the PHP Manual on PCRE pattern syntax.

Thanks... I have read the pattern syntax section on php.net.

I am having problems getting these expressions to match, likely because I am not sure how to properly match the () or [] as the character instead of the operation. I try general escape, ")" but it does not seem to work...

[laserlight]

I am having problems getting these expressions to match, likely because I am not sure how to properly match the () or [] as the character instead of the operation. I try general escape, ")" but it does not seem to work...

I suggest posting what exactly you tried.

For the first one I would use str_replace(), e.g.,

$str = str_replace('(nt)', $replacement, $str);

For the second one you can use:

$str = preg_replace('/^\\d{8}[\]$/', $replacement, $str);

Then for the third one, something like:

$str = preg_replace('/\(end time [A-Za-z]{3} \d{3}\)/', $replacement, $str);

[bradgrafelman]

Note that you'll need to add delimiters ('/' is the common choice) to all of the regexp patterns laserlight posted above to get them to work.

[laserlight]

Note that you'll need to add delimiters ('/' is the common choice) to all of the regexp patterns laserlight posted above to get them to work.

That's right, so I have added them in to make the correction.

[shawjames]

bradgrafelman wrote:

Note that you'll need to add delimiters ('/' is the common choice) to all of the regexp patterns laserlight posted above to get them to work.

I could not get those to work, I have this string:

[220161467752] Transparent Black Celtic ( end time Dec20 )

I want the output to just be:

Transparent Black Celtic

I tried:

preg_replace('/^\d{8}[]$/', "", $str);

but get: Warning: preg_replace() [function.preg-replace]: Compilation failed: missing terminating ] for character class at offset 10

and, the return string is empty.

I tried:

preg_replace('/(end time [A-Za-z]{3} \d{3})/', "", $str);

no errors or warnings, but it does not take anything out of the original string...

Any ideas? I suppose it could be done with one pattern match?

[bradgrafelman]

Code:

$string = '[220161467752] Transparent Black Celtic ( end time Dec20 )';
$pattern = '/\[(\d+)\] ([^\)]+) \( end time ([a-z0-9]+) \)/i';

preg_match($pattern, $string, $matches);
print_r($matches);

Output:

Array
(
    [0] => [220161467752] Transparent Black Celtic ( end time Dec20 )
    [1] => 220161467752
    [2] => Transparent Black Celtic
    [3] => Dec20
)