Question

I’m totally useless at regex, any advice much appreciated.

$url = 'http://somedomain.com?var=<##var##>&var2=<##var2##>';
echo preg_replace('^<##(.*)##>$', '', $url);

Trying to strip anything between (and including) <## and ##>. So my result would be:

http://somedomain.com?var=&var2=

Thanks

Answer 1

The code should be:

<?php
$url = 'http://somedomain.com?var=<##var##>&var2=<##var2##>';
$newUrl = preg_replace('/<##.*?##>/', '', $url);
echo $url;
?>

The ^ and $ you used are wrong, they represend the begin or the end of the string and you won’t replace only the <##...##> part if <## is at the beginning and ##> at the end of the string.

Also the ? after .* means that it matches everything from the <## until the next ##>. If you use .* it matches everything from the first <## until the last ##> so you result would be http://somedomain.com?var=