Re: regexp appears to be faulty!?

Thanks for that Mike, I was getting lost. Is there anyway to say Any characters excluding the sequence </fieldset> so I could do something like /<fieldset([^>]*)>(.* whilst not <\/fieldset>)<\/fieldset>/i Or alternatively is there a switch to say get the smallest sequence Thanks Henry "Mike Ford" <M.Ford@leedsmet.ac.uk> wrote in message news:0EEFC4D3CBE8A142868E396381B77A53D1255F@lis-exchange3.lmu.ac.uk... > On 24 February 2004 12:40, Henry Grech-Cini wrote: > > > Hi All, > > > > function extractFieldsets($subject) > > { > > $regexp="/<fieldset([^>]*)>[^(<\/fieldset>)]*/i"; > > This: [^(<\/fieldset>)] > will match any *single* character except the ones listed -- i.e. any character that isn't one of: ()<>/defilst > > So this: [^(<\/fieldset>)]* > will match any run of characters that is not in that set. > > > > > And it produced; > > > > (0)= > > (0)=[<fieldset attribute="hello">con] > > (1)=[<fieldset attribute="goodbye">goo] > > > > Why did it get three letters after the end of the "fieldset" tag???? > > By coincidence, the 4th letter in each case is one of the set listed above, and so ends the match: "t" in "content" and "d" in "goodbye". If the second example had ahppened to be, say, "au revoir", you'd have got 4 characters ("au r"). > > Cheers! > > Mike > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Mike Ford, Electronic Information Services Adviser, > Learning Support Services, Learning & Information Services, > JG125, James Graham Building, Leeds Metropolitan University, > Beckett Park, LEEDS, LS6 3QS, United Kingdom > Email: m.ford@leedsmet.ac.uk > Tel: +44 113 283 2600 extn 4730 Fax: +44 113 283 3211 >