Regex issue using preg_replace

Question

I have this code:

$str = '(Test)';
$final = preg_replace('/\[translate=([a-z]{2})(.*)\]'.preg_quote($matches[3][$i]).'\[\/translate(.*)\]/',$str,$final,-1,$ct);

It handles a situation like this okay:

test0[translate=en]Hello![/translate]test1

Which comes out as:

test0(Test)test1

But in this situation:

[quote:3ggw49so][translate=en]Hello![/translate][/quote:3ggw49so]

It comes out as:

[quote:3ggw49so](Test)

$matches[3][$i] is "Hello!" in this case and $str is "(Test)", and final is the full string that gets overwritten. So it's removing the [/quote:3ggw49so] part, why is that?

Tim · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-13 21:28:39Z

2

The * is a greedy quantifier, which means that it matches as much as possible. Your .* matches all the way to the last ]. To make a quantifier non-greedy, append a question mark: .*?.

$final = preg_replace('/\[translate=([a-z]{2})(.*?)\]'.preg_quote($matches[3][$i]).'\[\/translate(.*?)\]/',$str,$final,-1,$ct);

answered Feb 13, 2011 at 21:28

Tim

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Andrewsville · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-13 21:30:48Z

1

You can use the non-greedy switch or [^\]]* instead of .* which would match "anything until ]".

answered Feb 13, 2011 at 21:30

Andrewsville

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