Re: Regular expression to find from start of string to first space

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



Dave M G wrote:
> PHP,
> 
> Shouldn't this regular expression select everything from the start of
> the string to the first space character:
> 
> $firstWord = preg_match('#^*(.*) #iU', $word);
> 
> It doesn't, so clearly I'm wrong, but here's why I thought it would:
> 
> The enclosing has marks, "#", I *think* just encloses the expression. I
> was told to use them before, but I can't find them here:
> http://jp2.php.net/manual/en/reference.pcre.pattern.syntax.php
> 
> The caret, "^", says to start at the beginning of the line.
> 
> The first asterix, "*" after the caret says to use any starting character.

Here's where you go wrong.  The * means match the previous character 0
or more times.  In this case I'm actually not sure what it would do.
Given that you grab everything with the (.*) the first * is not needed
at all.


David

-- 
PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php


[Index of Archives]     [PHP Home]     [Apache Users]     [PHP on Windows]     [Kernel Newbies]     [PHP Install]     [PHP Classes]     [Pear]     [Postgresql]     [Postgresql PHP]     [PHP on Windows]     [PHP Database Programming]     [PHP SOAP]

  Powered by Linux