[RESOLVED] Having a very odd error that repeats infinitely.

[Pass341]

I was trying to make a program with my friend, this is what it looks like:

<?php
function create_passwd() {
 #creates random 8-char alphanumeric password

 $length=8;
 $list=array_merge(range('a','z'),range(0,9));
 shuffle($list);
 $passwd=substr(join($list),0,$length);

 return $passwd;
}

function valid_email($email) {
 #this function takes a string and checks it against a regular expression, 
 #to ensure it's a valid email address.
 $good_email = "([a-zA-Z0-9]+@[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+\.[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)+";
 if (preg_match("$good_email"/ $email)) {
 echo $email." is a valid email address.<br>";
 return true;
 }
 else {
 echo $email." is NOT a valid email address.<br>";
 return false;
 }
}

$user_array = array( array('email' => "[e-mail]", 'password' => ''),
 array('email' => "george@blah", 'password' => ''),
 array('email' => "[e-mail]", 'password' => ''),
 array('email' => "*@aol.com", 'password' => ''),
 array('email' => "nobody", 'password' => ''));

#filter array for invalid email entries
$index = 0;
while ($index < count($user_array)) {
 $next_user = $user_array[$index];
 if (valid_email($next_user['email'])) {
 $user_array[$index]['password'] = create_passwd();
 }
 else {
 #set the user_array entry to null, for later deletion.
 $user_array[$index] = null;
 }
 $index;
}
//now delete all NULL entries
$user_array = array_filter($user_array);
?><pre>
print_r($user_array);
?></pre>

When I try to run it it displays this really odd error:

Warning: Division by zero in /users/agerzon/lab8quiz2.php on line 17

Warning: preg_match() expects at least 2 parameters, 1 given in /users/agerzon/lab8quiz2.php on line 17 [e-mail] is NOT a valid email address.

And it basically repeats itself over and over again infinitely, causing my computer to lag. Anyone know what it means?

[bradgrafelman]

Welcome to PHPBuilder! When posting PHP code, please use the board's [noparse]

..

[/noparse] bbcode tags as they make your code much easier to read and analyze.

As for your errors... nothing "odd" about them. Look at the parameter you're passing to preg_match():

"$good_email"/ $email

That's telling PHP to divide the string containing the contents of $good_email by the contents of the variable $email. In other words, you're trying to divide a string by another string. Since PHP is a loosely-typed language, it tries to first convert those strings to numeric values and then do the division, most likely resulting in zero divided by zero.

For one, I'm guessing that the '/' is supposed to be the pattern delimiter (since all PCRE regexp's must be delimited, with '/' being a common choice). However, that means you've got three problems:

1. You're missing the beginning '/' delimiter.

2. The delimiter that you do have isn't inside the pattern string (hence why PHP is trying to perform a division operation).

3. You're missing a comma to separate the first and second parameter for the [man]preg_match/man function.

However, note that you shouldn't even be using that regular expression at all for a couple of reasons:

1. It rejects perfectly valid e-mail addresses as being invalid ("[e-mail]" and "[e-mail]" are both valid according to the RFC specs yet invalid according to your regexp pattern).

2. There's a much simpler (and more correct) answer: [man]filter_var/man (using FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL).

[Pass341]

Wow, I can't believe i forgot that. Thanks so much!