CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpregexpreg-matchpreg-match-all
Dannyboy
Dannyboy

Reputation: 2052

php preg_math_all matches wrong string

I have this subpattern:

<?php                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

    $wavs = 'aaaa="" wav="d" bbbbb="" wav="gerg" ccccc="" wav="" ddddd=""';        
    preg_match_all('#(?<=wav=").+?(?=")#', $wavs, $matches);                    
    print_r($matches);                                                          
?>

It results in this output: 

php test.php 
Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => d
            [1] => gerg
            [2] => " ddddd=
        )

)

While I expected just 2 matches: 

php test.php 
Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => d
            [1] => gerg
        )

)

What is the issue here? Why extra unrelated string is being captured?

EDIT: (M42 response)

preg_match_all('#(?<=wav=").*?(?=")#', $wavs, $matches);

still results in incorrect matches:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => d
            [1] => gerg
            [2] => 
            [3] => " ddddd=
        )

)

EDIT: (Sniffer)

OMG YES! THANK YOU SIR! EXACTLY WORKS! 

preg_match_all('#(?<=wav=")\w+?(?=")#', $wavs, $matches);  

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => d
            [1] => gerg
        )

)

Upvotes: 2

Views: 124

Answers (3)

Ibrahim Najjar
Ibrahim Najjar

Reputation: 19423

What is the issue here? Why extra unrelated string is being captured?

 #(?<=wav=").+?(?=")#
            ^^^
         This is the reason, it matches everything including the space and the "

You probably wanted:

#(?<wav=")\w+(?=")#

Upvotes: 5

Toto
Toto

Reputation: 91415

Change the + modifier to *:

preg_match_all('#(?<=wav=").*?(?=")#', $wavs, $matches);   
//                        __^

or

preg_match_all('#(?<=wav=")[^"]+(?=")#', $wavs, $matches);

Upvotes: 3

Casimir et Hippolyte
Casimir et Hippolyte

Reputation: 89557

to solve the issue you can replace .+? by [^"]+, example:

 preg_match_all('#(?<=wav=")[^"]+(?=")#', $wavs, $matches);

Upvotes: 3

Related Questions