regex: before and after the match

[meltedown]

I want to match a table and also capture the parts before and after the
table:
preg_match_all( "|(.*)(<table.* table>)(.*)|",$ text, $parts);
But of course it doesn't work, presumably because the first .* is
greedy. I tried adding an ? but that doesn't work either. How do I do
this ?

[Garp]

Re: regex: before and after the match


"meltedown" <fake@fake.ne t> wrote in message
news:Ecinc.1495 9330$Id.2475345 @news.easynews. com...[color=blue]
> I want to match a table and also capture the parts before and after the
> table:
> preg_match_all( "|(.*)(<table.* table>)(.*)|",$ text, $parts);
> But of course it doesn't work, presumably because the first .* is
> greedy. I tried adding an ? but that doesn't work either. How do I do
> this ?[/color]

You might be confused at the results because they contain the table HTML.
But you were right first time.

$text="|before< table>stuff goes here</table>after|";
print htmlspecialchar s($text)."<br>" ;
preg_match_all( "|(.*?)(<table. *table>)(.*)|", $text, $parts);

print("Before: ".$parts[1][0]);
print "<br>Inner: ";
print htmlspecialchar s($parts[2][0]);
print "<br>";
print("After: ".$parts[3][0]);

Results:
|before<table>s tuff goes here</table>after|
Before: |before
Inner: <table>stuff goes here</table>
After: after|


Isn't this what you wanted?

HTH

Garp

[Chung Leong]

Re: regex: before and after the match

"meltedown" <fake@fake.ne t> wrote in message
news:Ecinc.1495 9330$Id.2475345 @news.easynews. com...[color=blue]
> I want to match a table and also capture the parts before and after the
> table:
> preg_match_all( "|(.*)(<table.* table>)(.*)|",$ text, $parts);
> But of course it doesn't work, presumably because the first .* is
> greedy. I tried adding an ? but that doesn't work either. How do I do
> this ?[/color]

Yes, you need to make the first .* non-greedy by appending a ? (probably the
second .* too). The reason why it doesn't work is because you're not using
the s modifier, without which . doesn't match newline characters. Make sense
to use the i modifier as well for case insensitivity. And preg_match()
should suffice in this case, since you'll at most have one match.

[meltedown]

Re: regex: before and after the match

Garp wrote:
[color=blue]
> "meltedown" <fake@fake.ne t> wrote in message
> news:Ecinc.1495 9330$Id.2475345 @news.easynews. com...
>[color=green]
>>I want to match a table and also capture the parts before and after the
>>table:
>> preg_match_all( "|(.*)(<table.* table>)(.*)|",$ text, $parts);
>>But of course it doesn't work, presumably because the first .* is
>>greedy. I tried adding an ? but that doesn't work either. How do I do
>>this ?[/color]
>
>
> You might be confused at the results because they contain the table HTML.
> But you were right first time.[/color]
OK thanks. I did get it to work with preg_match
I think I was somehow abusing preg_match_all-