Search by string length

[perky416]

Hi everyone,

 

Me again with yet another regex problem lol.

 

Ok iv been trying to put regex together by myself as im trying to learn. I am trying to use regex to filter search results by the length of the string.

 

So if im trying to search for "test.com" using "^.{0,8}$" returns it correctly. However i cant figure out how to make it search for the string length before the 1st decimal point of the domain.

Im trying to get it so that using "^.{0,4}$" should return "test.com"

 

Any ideas?

 

Many Thanks

[.josh]

"^.{0,4}\."

[perky416]

Hi mate,

 

Thanks a lot for the code however it doesnt work. The search is pulling up results longer than 4 characters.

 

Thanks

[.josh]

You said you wanted to test the string length before the first decimal.  You then provided an example regex that showed 0-4 chars, and showed that even though "test.com" should match, presumably because  even though " test.com" is 8 characters long, "test" is 4 characters.  The pattern starts at the beginning of the string and matches 0-4 characters and then a literal dot.  Yes, it will match for instance "test.com" or "test.someotherrandomstuff", because that is what you asked for.  If this is not doing what you expect, then be more specific about what it is you are wanting to do and provide several examples.

[perky416]

What you describe is what im trying to achieve, however when i put what you gave me into a mysql query it is pulling up more than 4 characters before the decimal. It matches test.com, test1.com, test10.com, testing.com. All of these have more than 4 characters before the decimal.

[.josh]

post your query string

[perky416]

mysql_query("SELECT domain FROM domains WHERE domain REGEXP '^.{0,4}\.'");

 

Thanks mate.

[.josh]

oh okay, you need to double escape:

 

'^.{0,4}\\.'

[perky416]

Thanks i appreciate your help, however it still doesn't seem to be working.

 

Im not sure if this has anything to do with it but i have been echo'ing out the query for development purposes, and although i have added the extra \ only 1 is being displayed in the echo.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks

[.josh]

gah, okay, I just ran it on a test table in my own phpmyadmin.  Upon further reflection, since you are running from php and inside double quotes, you actually have to escape the escape too

 

mysql_query("SELECT domain FROM domains WHERE domain REGEXP '^.{0,4}\\\.'");

 

 

 

[perky416]

PERFECT!!!

 

Thank you as I said I really appreciate it.