Question about array syntax

[sclemens420@hotmail.com]

On the PHP site on the preg_replace() function page (
http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.preg-replace.php ), example 1
uses "@" signs in the regular expression members of the "search" array.
On another PHP site (
http://www.phpfreaks.com/phpmanual/p...g-replace.html ),
Example 5 is the same script except the regex array members use double-
then single-quotes.

Why?

Both scripts seem to work the same. I can find no documentation on how
the "@" sign affects how the regex is used.

A link to explanatory documentation would be highly appreciated.

[noone]

Re: Question about array syntax

sclemens420@hot mail.com wrote:
[color=blue]
> On the PHP site on the preg_replace() function page (
> http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.preg-replace.php ), example 1
> uses "@" signs in the regular expression members of the "search" array.
> On another PHP site (
> http://www.phpfreaks.com/phpmanual/p...g-replace.html ),
> Example 5 is the same script except the regex array members use double-
> then single-quotes.[/color]
[color=blue]
> Why?[/color]
[color=blue]
> Both scripts seem to work the same. I can find no documentation on how
> the "@" sign affects how the regex is used.[/color]
[color=blue]
> A link to explanatory documentation would be highly appreciated.[/color]

the "@" sign in the first example is used as the delimiter. In the second
example the delimiter is "/"

With regex - you can use almost any meta-character as a delimiter.

[Chung Leong]

Re: Question about array syntax

sclemens420@hot mail.com wrote:[color=blue]
> On the PHP site on the preg_replace() function page (
> http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.preg-replace.php ), example 1
> uses "@" signs in the regular expression members of the "search" array.
> On another PHP site (
> http://www.phpfreaks.com/phpmanual/p...g-replace.html ),
> Example 5 is the same script except the regex array members use double-
> then single-quotes.
>
> Why?
>
> Both scripts seem to work the same. I can find no documentation on how
> the "@" sign affects how the regex is used.
>
> A link to explanatory documentation would be highly appreciated.[/color]

The @ does nothing. In accordance with PERL syntax, you can use nearly
any non-alphanumeric characters to bracket regular expressions. People
usually stick with the /expression/ format, for among other things,
that's required in Javascript. Some people like to use @expression@
because in web application, you often search for the slash character
itself.

The following all do the same thing:

preg_match('|he llo|', "hello");
preg_match('@he llo@', "hello");
preg_match('/hello/', "hello");
preg_match('%he llo%', "hello");
preg_match('#he llo#', "hello");
preg_match('<he llo>', "hello");
preg_match('?he llo?', "hello");
preg_match('[hello]', "hello");
preg_match('&he llo&', "hello");
preg_match('(he llo)', "hello");
preg_match('=he llo=', "hello");

Some are, of course, goofier than others.