Question

I created a regex pattern that works in Dreamweaver’s regex Find, but when dropped into the pattern of preg_match, it fails. What am I breaking in the PHP (5.1.6) regex rules that otherwise works in Dreamweaver’s interpretation? Here’s the PHP:

preg_match("/(\{a\})([a-zA-Z0-9{} .])+(\{/a\})/i", "{a}{900678}{abcde}{0}{0}{0}{/a}");

Returns false currently. How can I modify the pattern so that it matches any string that begins with {a}anything goes in the middle{/a} type strings? I realize that the above regex will not match ‘anything’ in the middle, but I simplified the expression for debugging.

Answer 1

The slash in the /a part is being interpreted as the end delimiter of the expression. You should probably use another delimiter for the whole pattern, e.g.:

preg_match("~(\{a\})([a-zA-Z0-9{} .])+(\{/a\})~i",
           "{a}{900678}{abcde}{0}{0}{0}{/a}");

See it in action.