Question

long time listener. First time caller…

Not strictly a PHP question as it involves regular expressions but this one has got me tearing my hair out.

I have 3 regular expressions that I want to create, and only one is working correctly.

Now I am not sure whether this is due to the fact that:

1. I don’t understand preg_match and
   ereg and their return codes as I
   haven’t worked in PHP for about 7
   years.
2. My regular expressions are
   just plain wrong.
3. I am mentally disabled.

Either way here are the expressions and my feeble attempts in making them work.

1) Match any number starting with 2,3,4 or 5 then followed by 5 digits. (This one I think works)

code:

if (!ereg('/[2-5]\d{5}/', $_POST['packageNumber' )
{
   echo "The package number is not the correct format.";
}

2) Match any number starting with 2,3,4 or 5 then followed by 5 digits then a period then a 1 or a 2.

if (!ereg("/[2-5]\d{5}\.[1-2]/", $_POST['packageModifier' )
{
   echo "The package modifier is not the correct format.";
}

3) Match any combination of alphanumerics, spaces,periods and hypens up to 50 characters.

if (!ereg("/[0-9a-zA-Z\s\-\.]{0,50}/", $_POST['customerNumber' )
{
   echo "The customer number is not the correct format.";
}

If anyone can please tell me what I am doing wrong I’ll give them my first born.

Answer 1

I’m assuming that you just missed off the closing ] on the $_POSTS and i’ve added in anchors for the start and end of the lines and used preg_match.

If you don’t anchor it and the pattern is matched anywhere in the string then the entire thing will match. For example.

“dfasfasfasfasf25555555as5f15sdsdasdsfghfsgihfughd54” would be matched if the first one was not anchored.

Number One

if (!preg_match('/^[2-5]\d{5}$/', $_POST['packageNumber'])) {
 echo "The package number is not the correct format.";
}

Number Two

if (!preg_match('/^[2-5]\d{5}\.[2-5]$/', $_POST['packageModifier'])) {
  echo "The package modifier is not the correct format.";
}

Number Three

if (!preg_match('/^[0-9a-zA-Z\s\-.]{0,50}$/m', $_POST['customerNumber'])) {
 echo "The package modifier is not the correct format.";
}