Re: Optimal Regex?

David Pollack wrote:

I need to catch all instances of a coordinate in a give string. So far I have this, which only works if the coordinate is in a certain format. $string = (334,-53.44),(111,222); $expression = '([(][-]?[0-9]*[.0-9]*?,[-]?[0-9]*[.0-9]*?[)])';

here's a horrid little bit of .... for you :) <?php $testStr = <<< EOD

\$string = (334,-53.44),(111,222); preg_match_all(\$expression, "\$string", \$matches); This returns the correct strings (334,-53.44) and (111,222), but Id like all formats to work. Like (111, 222), ( 111 , 222 ), (111, 222 ), etc, etc. How would I change my regex to accomplish this? EOD;

$coordRE = "(?:[ ]?[-+]?\\d+(?:\\.\\d+)?[ ]?)"; $coordsRE = "#(\\({$coordRE},{$coordRE}\\))#"; $matches = array(); preg_match_all($coordsRE, $testStr, $matches); var_dump($testStr, $matches); ?>

preg_match_all($expression, "$string", $matches); ^-- why ? ...

are you wrapping the variable in double quotes?

This returns the correct strings (334,-53.44) and (111,222), but I'd like all formats to work. Like (111, 222), ( 111 , 222 ), (111, 222 ), etc, etc. How would I change my regex to accomplish this? -- David Pollack DHPollack@gmail.com www.atlspecials.com <http://www.atlspecials.com> www.da3.net <http://www.da3.net>