Re: Regular Expression Help in my PHP! Sorry if wrong group

Thanks for the response. I found this web page (http://www.itworld.com/nl/perl/01112001/) right after I submitted my question. It was great for explaining regexp's greediness. 1lt John W. Holmes wrote:

I have a script that turns certain words into links. That I am having no problems with, it is when I want to turn the links back in to plain text that I am having the problem. Below are my examples. And I know my regex is being greedy but I don't know how to stop it from being so damn greedy I thought the ? mark would help but it didn't. Any help would be appreciated. So here it goes: The code: $strStr = "This is <a href=test>USF</a> at <a href=test>Tampa</a>. This is <a href=test>USF</a> at <a href=test>Tampa</a>."; echo $strStr."<br>\n"; $strStr = preg_replace("/<a.*?>(Tampa)<\/a>/","\\1",$strStr); echo $strStr."<br>\n"; $strStr = preg_replace("/<a.*?>(USF)<\/a>/","\\1",$strStr); echo $strStr."<br>\n"; The output: This is <a href=test>USF</a> at <a href=test>Tampa</a>. This is <a href=test>USF</a> at <a href=test>Tampa</a>. This is Tampa. This is Tampa. This is Tampa. This is Tampa. The expected output: This is <a href=test>USF</a> at <a href=test>Tampa</a>. This is <a href=test>USF</a> at <a href=test>Tampa</a>. This is <a href=test>USF</a> at Tampa. This is <a href=test>USF</a> at Tampa. This is USF at Tampa. This is USF at Tampa.

Well, a /U at the end of your pattern will make it so the regex isn't greedy. That may solve your problem. Or you could try matching "/<a[^>]+>(Tampa)<\/a>/" which will match an <a followed by anything that's not a >, followed by a >. So it essentially makes it ungreedy. ---John Holmes...