[SOLVED] tag-replacement regex

[hungryroy]

Hi there,

 

I have a PHP script that I use to modify some contents according to tagging rules. My initial code is like this:

 

    $content = preg_replace(

        '/(\[TEST\])(^\[)*(\[\/TEST\])/',

        '<a href="http://localhost/test.php?param=${2}">${2}</a>',

        $content);

 

As you can see, I'm trying to transform everything inside [TEST][/TEST] tags into a URL that uses the content of the tags as a parameter. In most cases it works fine, except sometimes when the content contains two [TEST] tags in the same line, i.e.

 

A [TEST]test[/TEST] of two [TEST]lines[/TEST].

 

In this case, it matches the first opening TEST tag to the second closing /TEST tag, i.e. it interprets it as only one big TEST tag pair instead of two tag pairs.

 

I'm fairly bad at regular expressions, so I could use some help. Any suggestions?

 

Thanks!

[Daniel0]

Try this instead.

 

    $content = preg_replace(
        '/\[TEST\](.*)\[\/TEST\]/U',
        '$1',
        $content);

[hungryroy]

It worked! Thanks!

 

What does the /U mean?

[Daniel0]

It inverts the greediness. * is greedy, so by giving the U modifier it becomes ungreedy. An ungreedy quantifier stops looking as soon as something matches whereas a greedy quantifier keeps on looking until it cannot find any more which matches.

[hungryroy]

Thanks very much