You want to add a 'U' after you closing # so that matches are "Ungreedy" -- I.e., they do NOT grab as much text as the can to fulfill the pattern (greedy) but they grab as LITTLE text as they can to fulfill the pattern (ungreedy) On Wed, January 24, 2007 4:27 pm, Richard Luckhurst wrote: > Hi List > > I must be dumb as I have been battling my way through regular > expression > examples for a while and I can not work out why the following does not > work > properly. I am the first to admit that regular expressions confuse me > greatly. > > The string is a piece of XML as follows and I have put that string > into a > variable called $xml_string > > > <flights> > <flight flightId="19417361" addAdtPrice="0.0" > addChdPrice="0.0" addInfPrice="0.0"> > <legXRefs> > <legXRef legId="23862812" > class="V"></legXRef> > <legXRef legId="23862813" > class="V"></legXRef> > </legXRefs> > </flight> > <flight flightId="19417360" addAdtPrice="0.0" > addChdPrice="0.0" addInfPrice="0.0"> > <legXRefs> > <legXRef legId="23862810" > class="V"></legXRef> > <legXRef legId="23862811" > class="V"></legXRef> > </legXRefs> > </flight> > </flights> > > > What I am trying to do is extract the first <flight ..... /flight> > chunk. > > I am using the following, based on the example at > http://php.net/manual/en/function.preg-match.php example 3 > > preg_match('#<flight .*\/flight>#', $xml_string,$matches); > $tempstr = $matches[0]; > > What I actually get in $tempstr is everything from the first <flight > through to > the last (second) </flight> > > I would have expected preg_match to have matched from the first > <flight through > to the first </flight>. > > I suspect I do not have the regular expression correct. I would great > appreciate > any help on sorting out the regular expression so that it only returns > the first > chunk of the string. > > > > Regards, > Richard Luckhurst > > -- > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php > > -- Some people have a "gift" link here. Know what I want? I want you to buy a CD from some starving artist. http://cdbaby.com/browse/from/lynch Yeah, I get a buck. So? -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
