is there a way to compare two strings, and generate a universal regex expresion

[jjk2]

is there a way to compare two strings, and generate a universal regex expresion ? for instance take "Apple1" & "Apple2" and output $regex = /apple\d+/.

[Maq]

Depends.  Are you just trying see what's in common from the beginning to X or, are you trying to compare all common characters?  Is the end always a number?

 

For the first part you could use something like:

 

$s1 = "apple1";
$s2 = "apple2";
$i = 0;
$temp = "";
while($s1[$i] != null)
{
   if($s1[$i] == $s2[$i])
   {
      $temp .= $s1[$i];
   }
   $i++;
}

echo $temp;
?>

[jjk2]

well for example take URL

 

$d = "www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWm2zGTZBM0&feature=topvideos";
$d1 = "www.youtube.com/watch?v=vasdf32v&feature=featured";

a regex should be generated that would match that structure.

 

for instance it should out put $regex

"/www.youtube.com/watch?v=[a-zA-Z0-9]&feature=[a-z]/i

[hchsk]

is it assured that the two examples given to the function you want to make will have everything that is possible to be different be different? otherwise this will not be possible, as it cannot possibly know what elements happen to be the same with the examples, and might in another case be different.