Windows/ Unix regular expression question

[e_matthes@hotmail.com]

Hello,

I have a function which uses a regular expression to validate text
input. Here's a short code sample testing the regex:

<?php

$dirty = "hello";
$clean = getCleanText($d irty, 0,50);
print "<br>dirty: $dirty<br>clean : $clean";

function getCleanText($t extIn, $minLengthIn, $maxLengthIn) {

$acceptableText RegExp = "/^[a-zA-Z0-9_\- ]\{$minLengthIn,
$maxLengthIn}/";
print "<br>$acceptabl eTextRegExp<br> ";

if ( preg_match($acc eptableTextRegE xp, $textIn, $matchedArray) ) {
return $matchedArray[0];
} else {
return "";
}

} // END getCleanText($t extIn, $minLengthIn, $maxLengthIn)

?>


The output on my local windows machine is:

/^[a-zA-Z0-9_\- ]{0,50}/
dirty: hello
clean: hello

The output from my web site on a shared unix server is:

/^[a-zA-Z0-9_\- ]\{0,50}/
dirty: hello
clean:

If I take out the \ before the open brace, both systems give me an
error about unmatched braces. Are escape characters handled
differently on windows and unix? Why does the unix version leave the
escape character in the reg ex string after parsing the string?

Thanks.

[Toby A Inkster]

Re: Windows/ Unix regular expression question

e_matthes wrote:

$acceptableText RegExp = "/^[a-zA-Z0-9_\- ]\{$minLengthIn, $maxLengthIn}/";

$acceptableText RegExp = sprintf('/^[a-zA-Z0-9 _-]{%d,%d}$/',
(int)$minLength In,
(int)$maxLength In);


--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.12-12mdksmp, up 95 days, 2:52.]

Non-Intuitive Surnames

http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2007/05/25/non-intuitive-surnames/

[Alexey Kulentsov]

Re: Windows/ Unix regular expression question

e_matthes@hotma il.com wrote:

$acceptableText RegExp = "/^[a-zA-Z0-9_\- ]\{$minLengthIn,
$maxLengthIn}/";

.....

If I take out the \ before the open brace, both systems give me an
error about unmatched braces. Are escape characters handled

PHP try to parse this: {$minLengthIn,$ maxLengthIn} as one expression. {}
used in PHP string as special symbols. You can use '-string to avoid
such things:

$acceptableText RegExp = '/^[a-zA-Z0-9_\-
]{'.$minLengthIn .'.'.$maxLength In.'}/';

[e_matthes@hotmail.com]

Re: Windows/ Unix regular expression question

On May 29, 3:32 pm, Alexey Kulentsov <criman...@crim aniak.comwrote:

e_matt...@hotma il.com wrote:

$acceptableText RegExp = "/^[a-zA-Z0-9_\- ]\{$minLengthIn,
$maxLengthIn}/";

.....

If I take out the \ before the open brace, both systems give me an
error about unmatched braces. Are escape characters handled

>
PHP try to parse this: {$minLengthIn,$ maxLengthIn} as one expression. {}
used in PHP string as special symbols. You can use '-string to avoid
such things:
>
$acceptableText RegExp = '/^[a-zA-Z0-9_\-
]{'.$minLengthIn .'.'.$maxLength In.'}/';

I can use the single-quote method to make my code work:
$regExp = '/^[a-zA-Z0-9_\- ]{' . "$minLength,$ma xLength" . '}/';

I would still really like to know, however, why my local php
installation and the installation on my shared server interpret this
line differently:
$regExp = "/^[a-zA-Z0-9_\- ]\{$minLength,$m axLength}/";

My understanding is that the backslash tells php to escape the
following open brace. It seems to do that locally, but not on the
shared server. Any reason why the behavior is different on the two
systems?

[Michael Fesser]

Re: Windows/ Unix regular expression question

..oO(e_matthes@ hotmail.com)

>I would still really like to know, however, why my local php
>installation and the installation on my shared server interpret this
>line differently:
>$regExp = "/^[a-zA-Z0-9_\- ]\{$minLength,$m axLength}/";
>
>My understanding is that the backslash tells php to escape the
>following open brace. It seems to do that locally, but not on the
>shared server. Any reason why the behavior is different on the two
>systems?

Different PHP versions? From the manual:

| Again, if you try to escape any other character, the backslash will be
| printed too! Before PHP 5.1.1, backslash in \{$var} hasn't been
| printed.

and

| Since you can't escape '{', [...]

I would use sprintf() as suggested by Toby.

Micha

[e_matthes@hotmail.com]

Re: Windows/ Unix regular expression question

On May 30, 2:42 am, Michael Fesser <neti...@gmx.de wrote:

.oO(e_matt...@h otmail.com)
>

I would still really like to know, however, why my local php
installation and the installation on my shared server interpret this
line differently:
$regExp = "/^[a-zA-Z0-9_\- ]\{$minLength,$m axLength}/";

>

My understanding is that the backslash tells php to escape the
following open brace. It seems to do that locally, but not on the
shared server. Any reason why the behavior is different on the two
systems?

>
Different PHP versions? From the manual:
>
| Again, if you try to escape any other character, the backslash will be
| printed too! Before PHP 5.1.1, backslash in \{$var} hasn't been
| printed.
>
and
>
| Since you can't escape '{', [...]
>
I would use sprintf() as suggested by Toby.
>
Micha

Thank you, that's exactly it. It would have taken me a long time to
figure that out.