regex and preg_replace_callback

Question

I have a problem with a regular expression.
I'm working with tokens and I have to parse a text like this:

Just some random text
#IT=AB|First statement# #xxxx=xxx|First statement|Second statement#
More text

I use preg_replace_callback since I have to use the first statement or the second one, depending on the first expression is true or not; it's a sort of IF...ELSE... statement.

What I expect are 2 elements like this:

#IT=AB|First statement# 
#xxxx=xxx|First statement|Second statement#

So I can start manipulating them inside my callback function.
I tried with this regex /#.*#/, but i get the entire string, it's not parsed into elements.

How can I achieve that? I'm sorry but regex aren't my thing :(

codaddict · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-03 10:46:55Z

4

The quantifier * is greedy by default. So a .* will match as much as it can and as a result it'll match a # as well. To fix this you can make the * non-greedy by adding a ? after it. Now a .*? will try to much as little as it can.

/#.*?#/

or you can look for only non # characters between two #:

/#[^#]*#/

edited May 3, 2012 at 10:46

answered May 3, 2012 at 10:32

codaddict

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2 Comments

tampe125 Over a year ago

it works! thanks a lot. Please, can you explain me where was the error?

Tim Pietzcker Over a year ago

.* is greedy, matching as much as possible (including any #s it finds along the way). .*? matches as few characters as possible, [^#]* matches any characters except hashes.

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