[RESOLVED] Regex blindness

paulnaj

Hi guys,

Can anyone see what's wrong with the following regex ...

$para = '[a href="home"]see our food[/a]';

$para = preg_replace('/\[a href="([^"]*)"\]([^[]*)\[\/a\]/', '<a href="\1">\2</a>', $para);

// doesn't work

Whereas, this simpler one does work ...

$para = preg_replace('/\[a\]([^[]*)\[\/a\]/', '<a href="#">\1</a>', $para);

Cheers,
Paul

bradgrafelman

Try this instead:

@\[a href="([^"]*)"\]([^\[]*)\[/a\]@

paulnaj

Thanks Brad, but that doesn't work either.

I've checked to see if the input $para contains the expected text, and it does.

Any other ideas?

Weedpacket

Uh; what you posted works for me with the example given (this is getting to be a theme for me today...).

bradgrafelman

Weedpacket;10947998 wrote:
Uh; what you posted works for me with the example given (this is getting to be a theme for me today...).

Now that you mention it (and now that I actually tried it), you're right... this:

<?php
$para = 'this is a [a href="home"]see our food[/a] test'; 
$para = preg_replace('/\[a href="([^"]*)"\]([^[]*)\[\/a\]/', '<a href="\1">\2</a>', $para); 

echo $para;

produced this:

this is a <a href="home">see our food</a> test

paulnaj

You're both saying the first regex I posted is well-formed - so something unexpected must be happening elsewhere, although I really can't imagine what it could be.

At least I can now rule out the regex being wrong!

Will report back later.

Cheers, P.

paulnaj

Ok guys,

Found it ... really dumb on my part. I was using htmlspecialchars() on the text as it was being popped out of the db. The double-quotes were being converted to & quot ; (less the gaps).

Really sorry to have wasted your time!

P :o