XiCheng, fill my knowledge plz.
What is the '?' stands for ? Because if i try your expression in Visual regEXP 3.0, it shows an error right at '?'.

I'm sure your expression is correct, but just to learn exactly, can i use this pattern in PHP as is?

masster:

XiCheng, fill my knowledge plz. What is the '?' stands for ? Because if i try your expression in Visual regEXP 3.0, it shows an error right at '?'. I'm sure your expression is correct, but just to learn exactly, can i use this pattern in PHP as is?

Hi, I dont know which ? you were saying.

(?: ... ) is non-capturing grouping construct
\s?   means zero or one whitespace.

the pattern ^(?:[A-Z0-9'-.]+\s?)+(?<=\S)$ is using Perl-compatible regex syntax. I dont know Visual regEXP 3.0's regexes. If it's DFA regex, maybe you should change (?: ... ) to ( ... ) or \( ... \) to group [A-Z0-9'-.]+ and \s? together.

This pattern should work fine under PHP where you should use preg_match(...) instead of ereg_match(...).

Good luck,
Xicheng

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perl -le 'print"So~*kde~box*DS*Zoxf*fe|er"^$\x23'

Visual Regexp 3.0

http://laurent.riesterer.free.fr/regexp/

masster:

Visual Regexp 3.0 http://laurent.riesterer.free.fr/regexp/

oh, I dont have Windows machines right now, but if you can try it on the Linux command line in PHP, like:

php -r '
    $str = "M T  T";
    if (preg_match("/^(?:[A-Z0-9\47-.]+\s?)+(?<=\S)$/", $str))
        print "Matched : $str\n";'

and change the value of $str to your test string, and then you can check up the matching result. :-)

I'll try Visual Regexp this evening at home.

Xicheng

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perl -le 'print"So~*kde~box*DS*Zoxf*fe|er"^$\x23'

I found this: http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/dario19990616.php3?print_mode=1 and also PCRE regex syntax on PHP manual and differences From Perl.

masster:

I found this: http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/dario19990616.php3?print_mode=1 and also PCRE regex syntax on PHP manual and differences From Perl.

in the above weblink you provided, it's about ereg_match(...) which is using POSIX NFA regex engine and it's different from Perl's traditional NFA(or PCRE). If you use preg_match(...) then it's PCRE which means Perl Compatible Regular Expression.

why cann't you just try it in your php enviroment with preg_match(...) instead of ereg_match(...)??

Xicheng

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perl -le 'print"So~*kde~box*DS*Zoxf*fe|er"^$\x23'

Xicheng Jia:

why cann't you just try it in your php enviroment with preg_match(...) instead of ereg_match(...)??



Xicheng

chill, plz. The answer is simple: I am not a PHP guru, that's why I use CodeCharge Studio for building fairly complex PHP + mySQL applications. CodeCharge Studio is an excellent visual IDE, don't need to write too much code by hand, and inside it I have to enter in a textbox the EXACT regexp I need to use for validation. Hope it's clear now. Sorry if I avoid using preg_match and stuff.

masster:

Xicheng Jia:

why cann't you just try it in your php enviroment with preg_match(...) instead of ereg_match(...)??

Xicheng

chill, plz. The answer is simple: I am not a PHP guru, that's why I use CodeCharge Studio for building fairly complex PHP + mySQL applications. CodeCharge Studio is an excellent visual IDE, don't need to write too much code by hand, and inside it I have to enter in a textbox the EXACT regexp I need to use for validation. Hope it's clear now. Sorry if I avoid using preg_match and stuff.

Well, I just checked your tool, Visual REGEXP 3.0. it does not support look behind construct (?<= ... ) which produced the error of the pattern.. But if you are going to use PHP and preg_match(...), it does support look-behind.

you can use look-ahead to do the same thing though. try:

    ^(?=.*\S$)(?:[A-Z0-9'-.]+\s?)+$

in Visual REGEXP 3.0...

BTW. you need also to uncheck the 'nocase' option

Good luck,
Xicheng

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perl -le 'print"So~*kde~box*DS*Zoxf*fe|er"^$\x23'

Just checked the book "Programming PHP", and there are several main differences of PHP's regexes from Perl's:
1) (?{ perl code }), (??{ perl code }) constructs are not supported.
2) \E, \G, \L, \l, \Q, \u, and \U options are not supported.
3) Parenthesized submatches within negative assertions are not remembered.
4) Alternation branches within a lookbehind assertion can be of different lengths.

BTW. there is no ereg_match(...), should be ereg(...).

Xicheng

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perl -le 'print"So~*kde~box*DS*Zoxf*fe|er"^$\x23'

Just found this little gem: RegexBuddy, which has a very nice manual and tutorials too. I'm all over it to learn regex.

btw, for those interested... http://rapidshare.de/files/25518636/regex.rar.html :)

masster,

thanks for hte link man - it's a really coo program to have. Have u installed it? does it work?

Sergei

Like a charm, Sergei...