Problem with alternative regexp

[Liquix]

I got this regexp:

$regexp = '#<div class="profile-info">.*?name-text">(.*?)</span>.*?birthday date.*?\s+([\S]+).*?<div>.*?([ ]+<img src="([^"]+))*.*?<div class="profile-figure">.*?src="([^"]+).*?</div>.*?<div class="profile-motto">(.*?)<div#sm';

 

In the code you can find this:

([ ]+<img src="([^"]+))*

 

There is a crash between backtrace and making the string between the outer braces alternative there. If the code between the outer braces isn't in the text Im searching in, I want ([^"]+) to return an empty variable instead of making the whole regexp crash! Any way to do this?

 

(The * at the end is to make the content of braces be one or zero times)

 

[MadTechie]

ok well that regex isn't making sense to me, also what are you trying to search for ?

[Liquix]

Im searching for different information from an external webpage. In PHP the () is used as backtraces to get infromation to an array. One of the elements I want to add to the array is alternative and isnt always set.. I want the var to be empty if the specific image isnt in the code

[MadTechie]

and the problem is ?

[effigy]

Make it optional with (?: pattern )?.