Question

I have a large string (multiple lines) I need to find numbers in with regex. The position the number I need is always proceeded/follow by an exact order of characters so I can use non-capturing matches to pinpoint the exact number I need. I put together a regex to get this number but it refuses to work and I can’t figure it out!

Below is a small bit of php code that I can’t get to work showing the basic format of what i need

$sTestData = 'lak sjdhfklsjaf<?kjnsdfh461uihrfkjsn+%5Bmlknsadlfjncas dlk';

$sNumberStripRE = '/.*?(?:sjdhfklsjaf<\\?kjnsdfh)(\\d+)(?:uihrfkjsn\\+%5Bmlknsadlfjncas).*?/gim';

if (preg_match_all($sNumberStripRE, $sTestData, $aMatches))
{
    var_dump($aMatches);
}

the number I need is 461 and the characters before/after the spaces on either side of this number are always the same

any help getting the above regex working would be great!

This link RegExr: My Reg Ex (to an online regex genereator and my regex) shows that it should work!

Answer 1

g is an invalid modifier, drop it.

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