preg, ignoring chars!!

[ThomasJSmart]

can someone tell me why preg replace ignores the first of the characters im looking for?


$string = 'this is {some} string of {text}';

$replace = preg_replace_callback('/{.*}/i', "Creplace", $replace);

the returned match[0] = '{some} string of {text}'

so whats wrong with the '}' after some?? why is that one being ignored. i should be getting '{some}' returned or am i missing something?

I learned a bit yesterday, today i learned a lot, imagine what i'll learn tomorrow!

 

[jpadie]

you may be misusing the function. because i'm not sure how you get $match[0] from your script.

can you post the whole code segment, including the callback?

 

[jpadie]

oh i see. now that i've read the whole post....

this is a greediness issue. by nature the * is greedy and so will go to the last match that it can get.
just reduce the greediness by adding a question mark after the star.

Manual Ref

However, if a quantifier is followed by a question mark, then it ceases to be greedy, and instead matches the minimum number of times possible

 

[ThomasJSmart]

greedy code?? haha that is kind of funny.,

thanks for ? tip, works like a charm

i did also notice however the a \n ends the greedyness.

so in the case of

$string = 'this is {some} string
of {text}';

it did actually work correctly. interesting ^^

I learned a bit yesterday, today i learned a lot, imagine what i'll learn tomorrow!

 

[jpadie]

that is to do with dot match all. if you want to go across line breaks add an 's' to the modifiers.
e.g.

$pattern = '/matches/i[red]s[/red]';