preg_match and preg_replace

[AHA7]

     

Hello,

 

I want to search a string for a .com URL which may contain a trailing slash. If it does contain a trailing slash I want to strip it out using preg_replace. If it doesn't contain a trailing slash then I want to keep it as is and in both cases I want to store the no-trailing-slash-URL in the variable $URL_with_trailing_slash_stripped. (I do not want to affect the original string).

 

Here's my solution:

 

preg_match('/http://.*\.com[/]?/', $string, $matches);
$URL_with_trailing_slash_stripped = preg_replace('//$/', '', $matches[0]);

 

And here are my two questions:

 

1- Is the second line of the code above valid? Does preg_replace return a string and so I can store it in a variable? If not, how can I convert it to a string and store it in a variable?

 

2- Do I have to wrap the regex with forward slashes '//$/' (I have seen people do so and I don't know why)?

 

[MadTechie]

replace the / (delimiters).. with something else..

 

IE

preg_replace('#/$#', '', $matches[0]);

 

can you give some example of what you have and want

 

ie

 

/test//data//123/

to

/test/data/123/

 

but

//test//data//123//

stays as is

//test//data//123//

 

thats just an example..