Question

Hey.
I’m trying to parse a CSS file using PHP.

I’m trying to run this expression:

"/(". $selector . "\\s*{[\\w\\s:\\-;()#]*)(" . $property . ":)([^;}]+)(}?)/Ui"

This regex is supposed to pin down a specific property within a selector and allow me to change it’s value/remove it.

rational:

1. match the selector and it’s text preceding to the property
2. match the property name
3. match the property value
4. if the value ends by the } sign – catch it as well

The broken bit is #3 – For some unknown reason, when I run this through preg_match, the value group(#3) only catches the first char.

For example, running this expression:

preg_replace("/(h1\s*{[\w\s:\-;()#]*)(font-size:)(([^;}])+)(}?)/Ui","$1 $4",$css);

(find the font-size property of the h1 selector, and remove the property and value)

on this css group:

h1{
    background:#fff;
    font-size:10px;
    text-align:underline;
    color:#abc;
}

I get:

h1{
    background:#fff;
    /* note that although the property was matched and removed,
       the value only matched the 1st char: 1 */ 
    0px; 
    text-align:underline;
    color:#abc;
}

I’ve tried to check the expression through some test tools and it worked fine, so I’m guessing this is a preg* specific problem.

any ideas what I’m doing wrong?

Answer 1

(([^;}])+)(}?) does actually match only one char (with modifier U).

You have to use something like this: ([^;}]+)(;|})

Additionally it’s not bad to escape curly braces.

The full RegEx:

preg_replace('/('.$selector.'\s*\{[\w\s:\-;\(\)#]*)('.$property.'\s*:)([^;\}]+)(;|\})/Ui', '$1 $4', $css);