need some regexp help

[nlopes]

Hello,

I need some regexp help, using preg_replace.

Input data:
"%Y-%m-%d" " " "%H:%M:%S"
NULL
"1"
"/tmp"

... and so one...

and it should ouput this:
"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"
NULL
"1"
"/tmp"


Without using some nasty PHP commands, is there a regexp to replace those chars?, like:

$str = '"%Y-%m-%d" " " "%H:%M:%S"
NULL
"1"
"/tmp"';

echo preg_replace('/^"[^"]*(["]+).*"$/', '', $str);

Note: The above code doesn't work (obviously).

Probably this could be done with some lookahead/lookbehind subexpressions?

Thanks,
Nuno

[Help Desk]

It's not sure if this handles all the possible cases you are looking to handle, but have you tried this?

$str = '"%Y-%m-%d" " " "%H:%M:%S"
NULL
"1"
"/tmp"';

echo preg_replace('/" "/', '', $str);

[nlopes]

Thanks, but it doesn't work... it simplys echoes '': nothing!

I need a regexp to remove the quotes " in the string (but not the quotes in the end and in the begining). and to remove those extra spaces, too.

Any ideas?

[Arnica]

Hi nlopes

To save complexity in the reg expression I would simply use it to replace all ' " ' in the string and then prepend and append ' " ' afterwards. That way you're not having to worry about 'last matches' etc.

Mick :)

[nlopes]

That would broke strings like NULL, that don't have quotes...

[digitalpoint]

Actually this does works for me:
<?php
$str = '"%Y-%m-%d" " " "%H:%M:%S"
NULL
"1"
"/tmp"';

echo preg_replace('/" "/', '', $str);
?>

Although, probably better to use str_replace(), like so:
<?php
$str = '"%Y-%m-%d" " " "%H:%M:%S"
NULL
"1"
"/tmp"';

echo str_replace('" "', '', $str);
?>

[nlopes]

Thanks Shawn. Your str_replace() might work. I'll test it tomorrow in my program.

Bah,... But I really wanted some complicated regexp :) Something less specific to this case.... But lets see if your solution works!! :D

[Arnica]

Bah,... But I really wanted some complicated regexp :) Something less specific to this case.... But lets see if your solution works!! :D
How's this for complicated?

<?php
$str = '"%Y-%m-%d" " " "%H:%M:%S"
NULL
"1"
"/tmp"';
echo preg_replace('/(\")?([^\"]+)(?:\"| )*([^\"]* (?:\"?[\n\r\f]?))/g', '$1$2 ', $str);

?>

Don't do PHP (Die hard Javascript ASP programmer :eek: ) but this should do the job and handle any variations to the input. Let me know if it does.

NB There is some overkill here in that the ' " ' don't need to be escaped and you could probably get away with fewer parameters to detect the line break!

Mick

[nlopes]

Thank you for your help!

I've made a general preg_match, which is what I wanted:

if(preg_match_all('/"([^"]+)"/S', $default, $match) > 1) {
$st ='';

foreach($match[1] as $add) {
$st .= $add;
}
$default = '"' . $st . '"';
}


Full program at: http://testes.aborla.net/ini-update.php