Re: regexp novice

"Jim Lucas" <lists@cmsws.com> wrote in message news:4FB5B89E.8050000@cmsws.com... > On 5/17/2012 1:57 PM, shiplu wrote: >> On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 2:37 AM, Jim >> Giner<jim.giner@albanyhandball.com>wrote: >> >>> ok - finally had to come up with my own regexp - and am failing. >>> >>> Trying to validate an input of a time value in the format hh:mm, wherein >>> I'll accept anything like the following: >>> hmm >>> hhmm >>> h:mm >>> hh:mm >>> >>> in a 12 hour format. My problem is my test is ok'ing an input of 1300. >>> >>> Here is my test: >>> >>> if (0 == preg_match("/([0][1-9]|[1][0-2]|[1-9]):[0-5][0-9]/",$t)) >>> return true; >>> else >>> return false; >>> >>> Can someone help me correct my regexp? >>> >>> >>> >> I can not correct your regexp. But I must tell you that trying to tweak a >> regex for hours is surely **not productive**. If you got any type of text >> processing dont always go for regular expression. This problem can be >> solved just by simple string parsing. >> Here I have done that for you. >> >> >> function valid_time($time){ >> $m = (int) substr($time, -2); >> $h = (int) substr($time, 0, -2); >> return ($h>=0&& $h<13&& $m>=0&& $m<60); >> } >> >> > > That won't work, it doesn't account for the possibility of a single digit > hour field. > > I would do something like this: > > <?php > > $times = array( > '100', # valid > '1100', # valid > '1300', # invalid > '01:00', # valid > '12:59', # valid > '00:01', # valid > '00:25pm', # invalid > '0000', # valid > 'a00', # invalid > '00', # invalid > ); > > foreach ( $times AS $time ) > echo "{$time} is > ".(valid_date($time)?'valid':'invalid')."\n"; > > function valid_date($time) { > if ( ( $c_time = preg_replace('|[^\d:]+|', '', $time) ) !== $time ) > return false; > > if ( ( $pos = strpos($c_time, ':') ) !== false ) { > list($hour, $minute) = explode(':', $c_time, 2); > } else { > $break = (strlen($c_time) - 2); > $hour = substr($c_time, 0, $break); > $minute = substr($c_time, $break, 2); > } > $hour = (int)$hour; > $minute = (int)$minute; > > if ( strlen($c_time) <= 2 ) > return false; > > if ( > ( $hour >= 0 && $hour <= 12 ) && > ( $minute >= 0 && $minute <= 59 ) > ) { > return true; > } > return false; > } > > It seems overly complicated, but it does check and error for the various > things that I could think of for possible input. > > Give it a try and let us know. > > See it in action here. > > http://cmsws.com/examples/php/testscripts/shiplu.net@gmail.com/pt.php > > http://cmsws.com/examples/php/testscripts/shiplu.net@gmail.com/pt.phps > > Jim Lucas Thanks for the work you did, but I really wanted to try to solve this using the more "elegant" way, which from my readings over the last year as a new php developer, seemed to be the regexp methodology. I'm so close - it's only the 1300,1400,etc. time values that are getting by my expression. And thank you Shiplu also for your simple, but non-regexp, solution. Yes - it works and I had something similar that was just missing one more check when I decided to explore the regexp method.