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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-07T19:09:40+00:00

I want to remove all php tags from a external text so it can

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I want to remove all php tags from a external text so it can be included in php safely.

this is the sample input:

<?
?>
<html>
<?php ?>
<?= ?>
</html>
<?

or any other possibilites

and output:

<html>
</html>

the last php open tag may not have an end tag!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The proper way to do this is to not include it, but instead load it as a string, using file_get_contents(). That will preserve the PHP tags without executing them. However, the following regex will do exactly what you asked for:

    #<\?.*?(\?>|$)#s

    Here’s a breakdown of what that string represents:

    #       A delimiter marking the beginning and end of the expression - nearly anything will do (preferably something not in the regex itself)
<\?      Find the text "<?", which is the beginning of a PHP tag.  Note that a backslash before the question mark is needed because question marks normally do something special in regular expressions.
.*?     Include as much text as necessary (".*"), but as little as possible ("?").
(\?>|$)  Stop at an ending PHP tag ("?>"), OR the end of the text ("$").  This doesn't necessarily have to stop at the first one, but since the previous part is "as little as possible", it will.
#       The same delimiter, marking the end of the expression
s       A special flag, indicating that the pattern can span multiple lines.  Without it, the regex would expect to find the entire PHP tag (beginning and end) on a single line.
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