Question

Im trying to replace the following string in php:

2011.11.12 20:06,Teal'c Ostus,Solid Pyroxeres 46521,Pyroxeres

With:

2011.11.12 20:06,Teal'c Ostus,Solid Pyroxeres,46521,Pyroxeres

NOTE: There are 5 comma separated values here

Time, Character, Item Type, Quantity, Item Group

Note there are still to be some spaces left behind such as between date and time and first and last name and item with multiple words in its name.

Additionally, it cannot replace the \r and \n as there are many rows like the one above

Answer 1

Here is the regex for Search:

(\d{4}\.\d{2}\.\d{2}\s\d{2}:\d{2},[^,]*,\D*)\s(\d{5},.*)

And the regex for replace

$1,$2

Explanation:

The Regex for search

(       Begin a numbered capture group (Nameless and accessed via index)  
\d{4}   Means: capture digits with exact 4 repititions  
\.      Capture a dot (You have to escape it with a backslash, if not it means capture all  
        characters except linefeed)
\d{2}   Capture 2 digits
\.      Capture a dot
\d{2}   Capture 2 digits
\s      Capture 1 whitespace
\d{2}   Capture 2 digits
:       Capture a colon
\d{2}   Capture 2 digits
,       Capture a comma
[^,]*   Capture everything except a comma with 0 to infinity repititions
,       Capture a comma
\D*     Capture everything except a digit with 0 to infinity repititions
)       Close first capture group
\s      Capture a whitespace
(       Begin a numbered capture group
\d{5}   Capture 5 digits
,       Capture a comma
.*      Capture everything except a linebreak
)       Close second capture group

The Regex for Replace

$1      Insert capture group number 1
,       Insert a comma
$2      Insert capture group number 2

I hope that explains a little bit the (helpful but sometimes confusing) “magic” of regular expression. A good tool to design and test regular expressions is called Expresso and can be find here. If you want an online help and regex library with expression tester, you’ll find it here