Re: php seems to be inconsistent in its handling of backslashes ... maybe?

Richard Lynch wrote:

<?php preg_match('#\\#','any-string'); => warning

This seemed strange: warnings with 2 and 6 backlashes

For 2 backslashes, PHP "ate" the 2 backslashes, and handed PCRE #\#, and PCRE does not like that at all.

Yet preg_match('#\\#','any-string'); does *not* throw a warning when I run the 2nd script - the one where I call it in the loop.

no warnings with 3, 7 warning with 5 but not with 3 and 7.

PHP and PCRE are doing their damndest to make sense of the garbage you typed, but if you type garbage, you get garbage. http://us.php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php

But PHP doesn't appear to be consistent. In the 2nd script, I *do* get warnings with 3 and 7 slashes. PHP can't be inconsistent. So there must be some semantic difference in my 2 scripts which unfortunately is eluding me. Cheers