regex for matching any number of chars in string

[dsaba]

I know

[a-z]{3} will match:

'hey'

 

I want to say [a-z]{any number of chars}

 

the reason is i'm parsing through a php file and want to match all functions

 

here's a sample string

 

function funcName(list of args) {

code body

}

 

 

any ideas with this?

-thanks

 

 

this doesnt quite work:

/[fF]unction (.*) \((.*)\) \{(.*)\}/

[Wuhtzu]

I'm not really sure what you mean, but to match any number of characters in a given character range you use *:

 

preg_match("/^([a-z]*)$/",$string)

 

The above regex will match 'asdfaslekehe', 'a', '' ect. Any number of characters as you said.

[dsaba]

well... I dont know how to put this without sound as if I want you to write it for me..

 

 

I want to match any number of the following patterns in a php file

function funcName(list of arguments) {

code body

}

 

look familiar, well its the pattern for writing functions in php

 

funcName can be a-z lowercase or upper and any number of chars

list of arguments is the same except it includes some other special chars like ',' and '='

code body is just about anything and any number of chars

and it ends with a final }

 

how to differentiate between last brackets (}) of the code body than the real last bracket of the actual function, i'm clueless

 

but if you show me some regex to match that above describe pattern, I will most def. learn from it

 

-thank you

[dsaba]

I tried this:

 

<?php
$string = '
$bla = \'this other code\';
function funcName(list of arguments) {
if (lala) {
	maybe;
} else {
	ok;
}
return $set;
}';
$find = preg_match_all('/function ([a-zA-Z0-9_]*) \{(.*)\}[^}]*/', $string, $matches);
print_r($matches);?>

 

 

it returned this:

Array

(

[0] => Array

(

)

 

[1] => Array

(

)

 

[2] => Array

(

)

 

[3] => Array

(

)

 

)

 

 

 

what do I need to change?

[Wuhtzu]

This should do what you want:

 

<?php

$string = 'function tisoglol($lol="dild", $laks="fersk")';

$regex = "/^function ([a-z]+)\(([a-z=, \"\$]*)\)$/i";

preg_match_all($regex,$string,$matches);

print_r($matches);
?>

 

It will match bad function syntax though since the argument part is only specified as a string of 0 or more occurrences of $, a-z, ", ,(comman).

 

So this will match too:

 

"function somefunction("lol=fer$sk)"

[dsaba]

thanks for the interest

 

but you've misunderstood me (I need to work on this)

 

your regex grabs the function name and the arguments of the function

I want to grab the function name, the arguments, and the code body of the function

in other words the whole pattern, like I mentioned in the above posts

 

verbatim what I mean is this:

$bla = \'this other code\';

function funcName(list of arguments) {

if (lala) {

maybe;

} else {

ok;

}

return $set;

}';

 

I would want to put

function funcName(list of arguments) {

code body

}

 

into an array, where in each array it grabs another pattern like this, this particular example (since there is only 1 function in the string) should produce an array with 1 element in it

 

[PHP_PhREEEk]

I don't have the time to work all of that out, but can see already that this would be extremely difficult to grab all in one REGEX pass. You're most likely going to have to do multiple passes at each function and slowly build the final array.

 

PhREEEk