CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpregexstring
libertaire
libertaire

Reputation: 855

php regex preg_match - stop after first delimiter

I have a text with a lot of words and links. I want to find a specific link inside it. I currently use:

preg_match('/http:\/\/www\.myserver\.com\/.*\.(rar|zip|tar|gz)/',$text,$result)

Now let's say i have this text:

bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla <a href="http://www.myserver.com/test.zip">http://www.myserver.com/somefile.zip</a> bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla

the expected result would be:

http://www.myserver.com/test.zip

But the script will return:

http://www.myserver.com/test.zip">http://www.myserver.com/somefile.zip

I suppose i need to tell it to stop after reaching the first ".zip" but... how ?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 1777

Answers (1)

Jonathon Reinhart
Jonathon Reinhart

Reputation: 137398

The problems is that preg_match by default is greedy. This means it will match as much of the string as possible.

If you add a ? to a quantifier, it will make it non-greedy, meaning "stop where the next pattern begins"

preg_match('/http:\/\/www\.myserver\.com\/.*?\.(rar|zip|tar|gz)/',$text,$result);
//                                      ----^

See also:

Upvotes: 2

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