One Of My Preg_Replace Lines Does Not Work.

[leke]

One of my preg_replace lines doesn't work and I can't figure out why. It's very similar to another line which works fine.

 

$quote = '<ol>

<li>
<span class="bold quote_actor">
Delia Surridge:
</span>

<span class="line">
Is it meaningless to apologize?
</span>
</li>
<li>
<span class="bold quote_actor">
V:
</span>

<span class="line">
Never.
</span>
</li>
<li>
<span class="bold quote_actor">
Delia Surridge:
</span>

<span class="line">
I'm so sorry.
</span>
</li>

</ol>';

$quote = preg_replace("'<ol>(.*?)<li>'", '', $quote); // first 2 tags
$quote = preg_replace("'\s+'", ' ', $quote); // more than one space
$quote = preg_replace("'</li>(.*?)<li>'", '<br /><br />', $quote); // separate quote lines
$quote = preg_replace("'</li>(.*?)</ol>'", "\n", $quote); // last 2 tags
echo $quote;

So, everything works fine except

 $quote = preg_replace("'<ol>(.*?)<li>'", '', $quote); // first 2 tags

...which doesn't do its job. How come? It's very similar to

$quote = preg_replace("'</li>(.*?)</ol>'", "\n", $quote); // last 2 tags

Which works just fine.

 

Thanks.

[DavidAM]

The "." (dot) will not match a new-line unless you use the "s" modifier on the Regular Exp<b></b>ression.

 

$quote = preg_replace("'<ol>(.*?)<li>'s", '', $quote); // first 2 tags

[.josh]

Sidenote: quotes are not a very good pattern delimiter to use.  They come up often in patterns so it causes extra unecessary escaping, used as string delimiters so may cause issues with writing the pattern correctly to begin with, etc.. so as a best practice, you should use an uncommonly used symbol for your pattern delimiter.  I personally favor the tilde ~ because it has no special meaning for anything and stands out quite nicely. 

 

$quote = preg_replace("~<ol>(.*?)<li>~s", '', $quote); // first 2 tags