REGEX: Quotes still captured, don't want them

[Robert Oschler]

I am trying to strip out the contents of all double-quoted phrases in a
string. I tried the following:

preg_match_all( "/(?:\").*?(?:\")/i", $theString, $matches,
PREG_PATTERN_OR DER);

Given the following input string, whose quotes are escaped (slashed):

dogs \"bean bags\" cats \"in quotes\"

I get these two matches:

"bean bags\"
"in quotes\"

As you can see, I'm still capturing the quotes and one, but curiously not
both, of the slashes.

I want to get just the contents of the string inside the slashed
double-quotes, so here are my questions:

1) How can I get just the contents of the string inside the slashed
double-quotes?

2) Why are the double-quotes still being captured despite my use of
non-capturing parentheses?

3) Why did only one of the slashes get captured?

Thanks

[Janwillem Borleffs]

Re: REGEX: Quotes still captured, don't want them

Robert Oschler wrote:[color=blue]
> 1) How can I get just the contents of the string inside the slashed
> double-quotes?
>
> 2) Why are the double-quotes still being captured despite my use of
> non-capturing parentheses?
>[/color]

The (?:...) syntax does capture the specified character sequences; what you
are really after are assertions:

'/(?<=\\\")([^\"]+)[^\s](?=\\\")/i'

Mind the [^\s]; I have put it there to distinguish between \"bean bags\" and
\" cats \", which is also captured as a quoted substring otherwise.
[color=blue]
> 3) Why did only one of the slashes get captured?
>[/color]

Because you didn't mark the backslashes as literal characters, as in:

'/(?:\\\").*?(?:\ \\")/i' (Also note the single quotes enclosing the pattern)


JW

[Robert Oschler]

Re: REGEX: Quotes still captured, don't want them


"Janwillem Borleffs" <jw@jwscripts.c om> wrote in message
news:42ed3994$0 $6122$dbd49001@ news.euronet.nl ...
Robert Oschler wrote:[color=blue][color=green]
> > 1) How can I get just the contents of the string inside the slashed
> > double-quotes?
> >
> > 2) Why are the double-quotes still being captured despite my use of
> > non-capturing parentheses?
> >[/color]
>
> The (?:...) syntax does capture the specified character sequences; what[/color]
you[color=blue]
> are really after are assertions:
>
> '/(?<=\\\")([^\"]+)[^\s](?=\\\")/i'
>
> Mind the [^\s]; I have put it there to distinguish between \"bean bags\"[/color]
and[color=blue]
> \" cats \", which is also captured as a quoted substring otherwise.
>[color=green]
> > 3) Why did only one of the slashes get captured?
> >[/color]
>
> Because you didn't mark the backslashes as literal characters, as in:
>
> '/(?:\\\").*?(?:\ \\")/i' (Also note the single quotes enclosing the[/color]
pattern)[color=blue]
>
>
> JW[/color]

Janwillem,

Thanks! That does it. Another chapter in the neverending battle between
the characters we use to program in, being the same characters we have to
manipulate in text strings. :)

Robert

[Alexey Kulentsov]

Re: REGEX: Quotes still captured, don't want them

Robert Oschler wrote:[color=blue]
> I am trying to strip out the contents of all double-quoted phrases in a
> string. I tried the following:
>
> preg_match_all( "/(?:\").*?(?:\")/i", $theString, $matches,
> PREG_PATTERN_OR DER);
>
> Given the following input string, whose quotes are escaped (slashed):
>
> dogs \"bean bags\" cats \"in quotes\"[/color]
....
[color=blue]
> I want to get just the contents of the string inside the slashed
> double-quotes, so here are my questions:[/color]

preg_match_all( '/(?:\\\\")(.*?)( ?:\\\\")/i', $theString, $matches,
PREG_PATTERN_OR DER);

Use $matches[1];