Question

Hello i have this code but there is a problem with preg_match on passing $pattern variable.

$pattern = htmlspecialchars($_POST['pregmatch']);
$pattern = "'".$pattern."'";
preg_match($pattern, $content, $m);

if i give this /<span class=\"product_title\">(.*)<\/span>/
in the $_POST[‘pregmatch’] pregmatch returns NULL.

If i change the code to this

//$pattern = htmlspecialchars($_POST['pregmatch']);
//$pattern = "'".$pattern."'";
preg_match('/<span class=\"product_title\">(.*)<\/span>/', $content, $m);

works like a charm.

So whats the deal here? Slashes creates this problem?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Both of your additional lines appear to be causing a problem… if you were to do:

preg_match($_POST['pregmatch'], $content, $m); 

You would probably get the desired result.