Question

This code works on Linux but fails to match on Windows:

if ( preg_match ( "~<meta name='date' content='(.*)'>\n<meta name='time' content='(.*)'>\n<meta name='venue' content='(.*)'>\n~", file_get_contents($filename), $matches) ) 
...

I guess the line end coding is wrong. How should I modifiy the pattern to be
end-coding independent?

Answer 1

Windows line endings are:

   "\r\n"

The simplest solution is:

if (preg_match ("~<meta name='date' content='(.*)'>\n<meta name='time' content='(.*)'>\n<meta name='venue' content='(.*)'>\n~", file_get_contents($filename), $matches)
  ||
  preg_match("~<meta name='date' content='(.*)'>\r\n<meta name='time' content='(.*)'>\r\n<meta name='venue' content='(.*)'>\r\n~", file_get_contents($filename), $matches)) 

The correct solution probably is:

if (preg_match("~<meta name='date' content='(.*)'>[\r]?\n<meta name='time' content='(.*)'>[\r]?\n<meta name='venue' content='(.*)'>[\r]?\n~", file_get_contents($filename), $matches))

That said, you probably really should use another method for dealing with HTML & XML. There are parsers built specifically for that.

e.g. http://docs.php.net/manual/en/domdocument.loadhtml.php or http://php.net/manual/en/book.xml.php

On a side note, I haven’t really tested either but iirc, they work. Regex is not something I use much.

EDIT:
Seems to work fine?

$file = "iorahgjajgasjgasjgasjgjaagaspokadsfgals<meta name='date'   content='(.*)'>\n<meta name='time' content='(.*)'>\n<meta name='venue' content='(.*)'>\niorahgjajgasjgasjgasjgjaagaspokadsfgals";

if (preg_match("~<meta name='date' content='(.*)'>\n<meta name='time' content='(.*)'>\n<meta name='venue' content='(.*)'>\n~", $file, $matches)
  || preg_match ("~<meta name='date' content='(.*)'>\r\n<meta name='time' content='(.*)'>\r\n<meta name='venue' content='(.*)'>\r\n~", file, $matches)) { 
  echo "Success";
}
else { 
  echo "Fail";
}

$file = "iorahgjajgasjgasjgasjgjaagaspokadsfgals<meta name='date' content='(.*)'>\r\n<meta name='time' content='(.*)'>\n<meta name='venue' content='(.*)'>\r\niorahgjajgasjgasjgasjgjaagaspokadsfgals";

if (preg_match ("~<meta name='date' content='(.*)'>[\r]?\n<meta name='time' content='(.*)'>[\r]?\n<meta name='venue' content='(.*)'>[\r]?\n~", $file, $matches)) {
  echo "Success";
}
else { 
  echo "Fail";
}