Help With a Preg_Replace Lookahead

[slevytam]

Hi,

I have a preg_replace that finds images tags:
/<img src="(.)"(.)\/>/isUe

It works great but I would like to only match if the image tag is NOT inside a hyperlink. So i added this lookahead: /<img src="(.)"(.)\/>(?![\s]<\/\sa>)/isUe

For some reason the lookahead is taking the match past the img tag's />, passing the </a> and matching at the following />.

For example this pattern will match when it shouldn't:
<img /></a><br />

Without the lookahead it matches the img tag just fine.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks,

slevytam

[theelectricwiz]

Nope. Ignore that. Reread the question. If it wasn't 3am I would look into it. Perhaps tomorrow.

[Weedpacket]

Yes, because when

/<img src="(.*)"(.*)\/>(?![\s]*<\/\s*a>)/isUe

looks at

<img src="foo" /></a><br />

the second (.*) will first try to match " ", but that will fail, because then the "/>" will have to match the first "/>", which is followed by </a>. So it tries to find another match. And it does: " /></a><br ", and that is not followed by </a>, so the pattern succeeds.