look into the s modifier...it makes a dot match a newline as well, where
normally it wouldn't....
jack
-----Original Message-----
From: George Whiffen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 1:09 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PHP] ereg_replace - How do I stop it being "greedy"?
Hi,
I've got a problem with regular expression syntax with ereg_replace:
ereg_replace(':start:(.*):end:','this is \\1',':start: first :end: middle
:start: last :end:');
returns - this is first :end: middle :start: last
but I want - this is first middle this is last
The problem seems to be that ereg_replace is being greedy on the match and
matching as much as it
can
instead of just finding the first match, handling that and then going on to
the next match.
I can get it to work with preg_replace i.e.
preg_replace(':start:(.*?):end:','this \\1',':start first :end: middle
:start: last :end:')
returns - this is first middle this is last
But my actual string is on multiple lines, and preg_replace doesn't seem to
continue trying
to match on the next line, whereas ereg_replace happily treats newlines just
like any other
character.
So how do I stop ereg_replace being greedy or alternatively get preg_replace
to treat multiple
lines as a single source string?
George
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